Week 26 ~ Silhouette

 

Another week completed, and this proved a little challenging. I had already planned on doing an indoor shoot due to time restrictions, it was then a matter of finding a suitable subject. A tip when shooting a silhouette is to ensure the subject's lines are simple. In fact, the simpler, the more effective the silhouette. In my example, I chose a giant dandelion - it's about the size of an orange - and I've had it sitting for months in a vase, remaining intact this whole time. Of course, it's dry and brittle and needs to be handled with care, but it was perfect for this week's challenge. Next, the lighting. I used my halogen desk lamp to point toward the seed head and kept a bit of distance between the seed head and the background. I'm determined to get the hang of the Olympus E-PM1 and really use as many of it's features as possible so I was pretty excited to find where to change the metering, and now have it set to Spot Metering. There really aren't many buttons on the camera, and the few buttons seem to double up on what they can do. It's a challenge remembering what each button does and when! But that's not a bad thing :) I then screwed on the Lensbaby macro filters as the macro function on the camera isn't really a close enough macro. Playing with different DOF and points of view, I showed a couple of friends the shortlisted images before settling on this one. It's always good to have that impartial second opinion, I find it helps me improve my photography skills.

This week's theme is "Black and White" and I'm scheming in my head, in readiness for the friday shoot. :)