Vase Of Flowers

I took this photo in my last photo shoot. I was trying out different lighting techniques; one of these techniques was to have the flash gun set up behind the vase and have the light shining through the glass. It was quite difficult to find the right power settings as the flash being so close kept blowing out the highlights.

As I previously said I had the flash gun set up behind the vase, to attain the best effect I started with a relatively high power: 1/8^th of the total power. I then worked my way down to 1/64^th of the total power. I found this to be the best compromise between the highlights and the rest of the exposure. I was trying to have the background dark with the vase looking like it was lit up from the inside, I think by having the flash gun set at 1/64^th created this effect the best.

To edit the photo I changed the light levels to darken the background and to tone down the highlights. I also changed the white balance to remove a colour cast. I was happy with the rest of the photo so I didn’t change any of the other settings.

I like the effect of this photo; I managed to create the effect of the vase being lit from the inside. The next time I do a still life photo shoot similar to this I will experiment with the flash gun power settings and the distance to the subject to try to improve the effect further.

Mat