The Planets - Version 2

[Manfred M]

I am looking at doing a small project of 4 - 8 images using glass spheres, back lit gels and some smoke from my smoke machine. This one looks like it is almost done.

I like the way the smaller spheres refract some of the other spheres in the scene.

[mugge]

I like it. What about introducing a dark orange sphere bottom right?
Cheers Ole

[pnodrog]

Far more subtle than some of your previous glass arrangements. Interested to see how you progress in this direction. Like it a lot but not too sure about the copping which I think would be better a bit tighter.

[Manfred M]

I like it. What about introducing a dark orange sphere bottom right?
Cheers Ole

If I could figure out how to light that without too much slight spill, I would try that.

As the scene is primarily illuminated by cyan, with green and blue areas, any of the warmer tones in a naturally orange ball (which I don't own) would come out looking gray or black. That means I would have to figure out how to get an orange light source into the shot and control it so that it is quite localized. I've tried this idea before, without much success, but might try to go back to it with some other hardware / techniques.

[Manfred M]

Thanks Paul - You are quite right, most of my previous glass work was quite "in your face" from a colour / saturation standpoint, which is not to everyone's taste. When I started with heavy smoke injected into a scene, I found that the saturation really dropped and it produced a different aesthetic. In some ways, these images reminded me a little of some of the shots of the "universe" we have seen from the Hubble and James Webb space telescopes.

As a print maker, I find this helpful, especially in images that are heavy into the blues, greens and cyans, as even baryta papers with their higher lustre finish (versus the cotton rag papers) could not reproduce those colours all that well. Even with this shot, I am still fighting with significant out-of-gamut areas, so I am still testing.

I'm hoping to shoot some more this weekend, but given the wonderful weather forecast for our early fall days, I would rather spend some time outside...

[escape]

Hello Manfred. Perhaps my view might seem radical, but I find the composition too weighty. Flipping the image and some cropping gives it a more sci-fi floaty feel. Maybe something to experiment with or totally off base? Either way, I like what you're doing.

[Manfred M]

Hello Manfred. Perhaps my view might seem radical, but I find the composition too weighty. Flipping the image and some cropping gives it a more sci-fi floaty feel. Maybe something to experiment with or totally off base? Either way, I like what you're doing.

Thanks for the comments, but with your edit, I find that the image looks very top-heavy and does not work all that well.