The Story Behind the Photo:

March 2021: Shapes or Angles

by Anne Cosgrove

I have a bridge camera, Panasonic Lumix zoom lens.  I really like this camera because it is more compact and I don’t have to carry a variety of lenses with me.  With that said, it is also the restriction of this camera as well. Without the full flexibility of a variety of lenses you end up compromising at some point. Certain techniques are harder to achieve, like  bokeh  backgrounds.  

I had planned and set this display up a couple of weeks in advance and rearranged the display several ways, taking pictures at night so the room was darker using only spot lights and then during the day to use some daylight through the windows.  I had two lights with one on the right that also shined on a white board to reflect some light back to the display. The other light was in front on an angle.  The f-stop 2.8, ISO 100 and I shot in Aperture Priority. 

I have always loved my mother’s button box which was a fruitcake tin canister full of various sizes, shapes and colors of buttons. Running your hands though all the buttons was like going through a treasure chest of coins.  Anyone who sews knows what I mean.  They add the finishing touch to anything you sew.  That is where the idea started and the hunt was on looking around the house to put the display together and create a composition with shapes, texture and interest.    I had a lot of objects to work with and when I first put them together it looked like a junk drawer!   As Mies van der Rohe said, “Less is more”; so I kept pulling out items until I got a composition I liked and looked balanced.  

There actually is a lot of color in the fabric, buttons, even the base of the spools are painted red.  To make the shapes pop out better, I shot in monochromatic and let the textures speak for themselves. 

The post processing was interesting because I had literally just bought ACDSee and  installed it then played with this photo to see what the program could do.  I really didn’t know what I was doing because the settings were confusing to me, so different than what I am used to.   After some adjustments and just slight cropping, I pressed finish and came up with this picture.  What I was most happy about was the texture, it really popped out so much more than I imaged it would or could be.  I have since worked on a couple of other photos with no success, so I am very much looking forward to the workshop on this program!