As a clear indicator of our pointless lives, neighbour Nik and I pass each other objects on a regular basis with the detailed instruction “have a go at this then”. The object in question is invariably a complete bastard to photograph.
It all started, as many things do, with a wine glass. How do you photograph a wine glass without capturing unwanted reflections? The answer, courtesy of a book called Light, Science and Magic, turned out to be very complicated.
From there it has been downhill, and anything remotely reflective has been passed between us with thinly disguised sneers, indicating a certainty that this latest offering will defeat all attempts to avoid unwanted reflections.
A couple of days ago I received this from Nik:
A very fine and chunky amethyst geode, stuffed full of crystals just waiting to reflect light back into the camera lens. You can see some doing it in the photo above, and a closer attempt has the same problem:
There is probably a way round this involving metres of blue tube and the construction of a massive tent; but I couldn’t be arsed. So instead of shining light onto the crystals, I tried shining it through them. First I set the light so it came in through the open side of the geode. That had the unexpected result of turning the previously white interior into a rather pleasing green, courtesy of the light coming through the outer shell.
Then I tried shining the light directly through the base of the geode. Again surprisingly, the crystals lost their typical purple amethyst colouration:
I rather liked that; so I took the image and ran it through Topaz Adjust until I found a suitable preset, and this was the result:
Quite pleasing to my eye (click to enlarge), and no reflections. I win. Tomorrow I will return the geode and give Nik an icosahedron made of polished glass. Have a go at that then….
Comments 🔗
2012-08-28| Robin Parmar saysNice! And you could always re-colour the resulting file to resemble the original amethyst.
2012-08-29| TheSon saysAttempt #2 shows promise - can you mash some black matte card in there to bring out just that cyan slice of crystals?