Potpourri

This is one of the photos I took on my recent photo shoot. After using the flowers and the vase, I looked around and found a bowl full of potpourri. I thought this would make an interesting composition if I took the photo in black and white.

For this photo I just used the natural light that was landing on the bowl as using the flash would spoil the effect I was aiming for. I had the camera in manual mode, and I selected an aperture of F16 to ensure the depth of field was adequate, I then programmed a shutter speed of 20 seconds at ISO 100 to complete the exposure. I set the white balance to the daylight setting as I was using natural light. I framed the photo so the bowl was in the right hand side of the frame.

To edit the photo, I de-saturated it to remove the colour. I then increased the contrast to make the photo look punchier. I didn’t change anything else as I was happy with the effect I had created. I didn’t change the white balance as I had already preset it to the daylight setting.

I like the way this photo has come out, I’m glad I didn’t use the flash on this one as otherwise it would have spoiled the effect I was trying to create.

Mat