Contrasts - Part 1

My first assignment is all about contrasts, so I thought a good start would be to gather some small objects to demonstrate contrasts in their physical characteristics.

This leant itself to indoor table-top shooting, which, given the weather we'd been having, was a sensible way to get started and keep momentum. I dug out an old Lastolite light 'tent', which I bought years ago for snapping objects to sell on ebay.

This is designed to be used with a single light source and is made of white diffusing material, except for one side panel which is silver. This silver panel reflects light back onto the unlit side of an object in order to 'fill' the shadow. I bought some coloured paper and card to fashion backgrounds, and to help control the lighting and shadows.

Sketch of lighting set-up

The basic idea was to use soft diffuse light for showing off softer, smoother objects and make a much more harsh, directional light to show up texture in other objects. Lighting itself would come from a very old and very battered Bowens studio flash unit.