When life hands you an apple, make applesauce

Or just take some totally cool and fun photos! 

I wanted to do some water shots with apples, so I looked for apples that weren’t a solid color. I found some that had a lovely mixture of red and green/yellow tones.  Finding apples that had the right “look” was easy – finding ones that had stems still attached was tougher! An old guy kept giving me funny looks as I picked up apple after apple, looking for the surprisingly elusive stems.

Setting up for the actual water shots took almost as much time as finding the apples, but it’s actually a pretty simple process: Tie a string around the apple stems and hang from a horizontal boom arm. Place an inflatable kiddy pool underneath to catch the water. Set up 3 flashes – one at about 45-degrees front and slightly above the apples, one set opposite the first except slightly below the apples, and one set behind the apples and to the side.

Then it’s a matter of filling a plastic cup with water, throwing it up at the apples with one hand while releasing the shutter with a remote cable with the other hand. After taking the shots, I removed the cord from the photos in either Lightroom or Photoshop, and then rotated many of the photos, since I think they look cooler horizonal.

Voila! The results:

All photos © Colleen D. Gjefle, 2012

Review - Pro Optic Budget Auto Extension Tube Set

I do jewelry photography, so I need to get close to really small stuff.  I had been  looking at the Kenko extension tubes to augment my Sigma f/2.8 50mm macro lens, but I really didn’t feel like  spending $200 on them.  So I decided to give a try to the Pro Optic Budget Auto Extension Tube Set sold by Adorama and which I bought through Amazon since I had some points to use towards them.