Assignment #93: The Kitchen

[matthew]

Taking pictures is like tiptoeing into the kitchen late at night and stealing Oreo cookies.
- Diane Arbus

There are two wonderful things in photography: being near excellent photographic opportunities, and already having everything you need to take advantage of them.

For this assignment, look at what you have in the kitchen. Water drops, fruit, vegetables, glassware and flatware all make for classic subjects, and are all worth exploring. There's also a variety of different surfaces and textures, shapes and lines to create compositions with. Move things around, change your perspectives, and shoot whatever catches your eye. Any camera, any lens, and any light will do: see what you can create with what you already have where you already are.

[Keith Alan]

When I think of my kitchen, the overwhelming impulse is water.
While I do most of the cooking, I also do the dishes every day, refill water bottles, clean aquariums and their parts, hydrate the plants--so water is the main thing for me in the kitchen.
Since Matthew mentioned water drops first, and posted this Assignment just two days after the Strobist posted this tutorial, tonight I went for the water drops.

I hung a blue gelled flash over my bucket (on the kitchen counter, of course) pointing at a white foamcore background.
Flash was remotely fired with cheap Cactus triggers, which usually work very well for me.
Went with the lowest flash output setting (1/16th) as it's duration is much shorter thus freezing the action better, as per the Strobist's advice.
At low power the flash also recharges instantly, so I was able to hold the shutter button down @ 3fps with one hand while dropping water with the other.
In only a few minutes I had taken 85 exposures, of which 24 had something worth looking at.

These are my 3 favorites:







To be honest, I never got the urge to take water drop pictures in a studio setting before now.
I always felt that they should be done outside in the rain--my opinion was that location drops were somehow more real and interesting.
But it was fun and easy and I really like the results, so I hope to remember this whenever I'm not being as open-minded as I could be.

[Wedding Shooter]

The last one is amazing - great stuff Keith.

[phlip]

Here's some stuff in my kitchen. Hope you like them

[Keith Alan]

I like them very much, phlip.
That's some solid work, and a more interesting kitchen than mine.

[phlip]

Thanks, Keith. Love all your water drops! Especially the last one for me too.

[nia]

These three drops are great. The colour of blue is great too. And you took them in the kitchen! Wow! Fascinated me so much.
Well done Alan, so creative and so beautiful. Thank you,

with my love,
nia