Two Giraffes from South Africa

[Mike Buckley]

Fooled ya! Though the photo is of two pewter likenesses of giraffes rather than real animals, the serving set really is from South Africa.

Our friends gave the serving set to us as a parting gift to commemorate our 30th anniversary trip in general and specifically to memorialize an evening scene the four of us experienced. It was an enchanting scene of five giraffes amid an idyllic setting in the bush.

As you can imagine, my wife and I are extraordinarily grateful for such a thoughtful gift. So, I just had to send a photo of it to our friends. I'll also include the photo in the thank-you book that we'll give them.

I suspected that the curved, shiny metal would make it the most difficult photo that I have ever made in my makeshift studio. Unfortunately, I was right. Especially considering that it's my first photo that has that particular challenge, I'm reasonably satisfied. Even so, C&C is encouraged.

[Donald]

... I'm reasonably satisfied.

And so you should be. That is an excellent piece of photography.

Never having tried to do anything similar, I can only imagine the challenges involved. But I think you have lit it beautifully.

[pasusan]

I agree with Donald - it must have taken a lot of effort to get the lighting so nicely soft to avoid glare and harsh shadows with your tricky subject. Very nice, Mike!

[Mike Buckley]

Thank you to Donald and Susan.

It was actually very rewarding just now to review the chapter in Science: Light and Magic pertaining to photographing round, shiny metal. Despite that one could easily argue that I should have reviewed it yet one more time before rather than after making the photo , everything about the setup that I created to make the photo complies with the principles of light explained in that chapter. This makes me think that maybe, just maybe, I'm beginning to understand those principles to my advantage rather than being limited to replicating the details of somebody's setup that might not be practical considering the limitations of my makeshift studio.

Susan: To produce the soft shadows and avoid the glare that you mentioned, I built a large light tent explained in this thread. The factor that you didn't mention is that the physics of light made it impossible to create the composition that I wanted without a reflection of the camera appearing in the shiny metal. So, digital touch-up was needed to address that and it took a lot longer to get it right, probably due to my inexperience, than I would ever have imagined.

[Brownbear]

beautiful image, the lighting is stunning.

[Bobobird]

LOL, for a moment I thought we had managed to get you more interested in wildlife and out of that dark corner.

BUT -------- THAT IS ONE LOVELY IMAGE.