About the Image(s)

Here is another image of a hexagon puzzle that I found. These are a series of progressively smaller hexagons nested inside one another. The entire puzzle is about five inches in diameter. My goal here was to illuminate the puzzle from underneath with different colored lights to get a variety of forms and shapes. Here I first though of this I ordered the puzzle in white (its plastic), but the black version arrived. I reordered the white version since I thought that that version would capture and reflect the colored light more effectively. Here I mixed the versions up so that the progressively smaller hexagons were alternatively white and black.

I placed the puzzle on a piece of clear window glass held up by two cardboard boxes on either end, and placed my colored lights both below and above it, projecting at differing angles . In the attached image I show both Red and Blue lights being used, but I did not submit the image resulting from this set-up. Here I used my Canon 5D MK IV camera on a tripod and collected 28 focus slices. I employed my 100 mm f/2.8 macro lens with the following settings: 0.8 second, ISO 100, f/9, and collected the images in a darkened room to control ambient light.

After stacking the collection of slices (in Zerene Stacker) I edited the stacked image in Photoshop to yield this result. In this image, I also added a color gradient and texture to the background to limit the feeling that the items were floating in space. I also created an alternate version with a bit more ethereal glow in the background.

What do you all think of this image, and which of the two do you like best?