Ever had one of those moments where someone thinks that the camera does all the work and you just merely snap the shot? I bet you have! I know I certainly have had one too many of those conversations where I've had to explain that it's not quite as easy as the photo may make it seem... And so, this blog is dedicated to explaining that "No, it's not as easy as it looks."

         For this week's photo challenge, I decided on a Valentine/Love theme. In trying to capture the essence of Valentine & Love, I concentrated on capturing intricate details of a rose that was accentuated by lighting. In trying to create the idea I had in my head,  I had to turn my living room into a mini photo-studio. 

         First, I laid out a black sheet for my backdrop as I wanted the rose to be the only thing that stood out in the photo. Since I was using black cloth, I rolled it lint-free and then steam-pressed it to ensure that there weren't any visible creases. Thereafter, I positioned the rose in the middle of the black spread and proceeded to set up the flash/lights. Here's what the initial set-up looked like....

          After taking a few clicks to adjust the intensity of the flash/lights and the camera settings, I got this shot.

           Then I thought, what if I made it more dreamy/artsy by adding a yellowish glow? Since I don't currently have a lens filter as part of my photography kit, I had to improvise. With a few souvenir beer bottles, my set-up then looked like this.

           And low and behold, I got this image. 

         Of course, the two photos with only the rose were edited a bit for that "extra pop". But, as you can tell... most of the work went into the set-up, focusing on where and how the flash/light was placed, tweaking the ISO and Aperture settings, and figuring out how to extract as much detail from the rose without having to resort to too much editing. So there,  it isn't as easy and ready-to-do as it may seem.....

         Oh, and did I forget to mention that sometimes one has to deal with added obstacles? In my case, it's my two lovely kitties, Chester and Nala, who had fun jumping around my set-up for the first couple of minutes. Since cats are inherently curious about EVERYTHING, I just had to wait until they pretty much got over "their excitement" before I began my actual shoot. However, I did snap some shots of my lovelies invading my space.....

               But, then again, cats do take EPIC photos... now don't they?

Amore

           For some black and white shots, see here.