[Irma]

I missed these ones...
The pictures with the knife I like the second one, with the brick framing. The second one is really well done. The picture match great with the product and message.

[matthew]

Thanks, Irma.

I find this style of photography very frustrating but also very enjoyable. Lighting and composition becomes a technical puzzle and test of ingenuity instead of being a question of where to point the camera.

[matthew]

One thing that I've been told many times is that it's important to be interested in something other than photography. The other interests can provide inspiration, subjects, and long-term projects for the photographic interest.

One of the things that I like is jewelry, but unfortunately that's an even more expensive hobby than photography. For the past couple of days I've been trying to get a good photo of a pair of earrings.



The one above is the best I've been able to do so far, but still isn't something I'd show a potential client. The one below is a serious "miss".



I've done a lot of post-proccessing work on the first: getting the lighting right in Lightroom, cloning, sharpening, creating a slight Orton effect, and finally dodging and burning in Photoshop, and then adding a slight vignette in Lightroom before finally exporting it and printing a copy. The second image has been cropped and had the exposure adjusted, but is otherwise unedited.