Most people really dislike rainy days. Especially if they’re photographers. One way to get out of that rainy day funk is to play with some tabletop photography.
Tabletop photography consists of coming up with something to shoot on a tabletop. Its that basic.
For me, one of the things I like to do is play with light and glass. As I’ve blogged before, you can create some great glass images using bright field lighting. One more step you can go is to add some fun colors that help your photo pop (with a capital “P”).
Stop / Go by Eric Spiegel -- Nikon D80, f/6.3, 50 mm, ISO 100
In this photo, I just used the bright field lighting set up as described in Light, Science and Magic. I used my glass top dining table (with a piece of copy paper taped underneath) for a reflective surface and a piece of white foam core as the background. I sat the foam core on a chair with my Lumopro 160 strobe (set at M1/4) sitting on the chair below and behind the shot glasses. The shot glasses themselves are filled with colored water.
Checked Refraction by Eric Spiegel -- Nikon D80, f/3.5, 50 mm, ISO 400
Later in the day, I decided to try out a fun and simple method of distorting patterns with glass. I first saw this tutorial on DIY Photography. All it involves is setting your computer monitor to have a basic patterned background and then placing a glass object in front of the monitor. The glass refracts the image of the pattern and creates a simple, yet fun photo.
What types of creative tabletop photography do you enjoy?