A recent trip to a local outdoor market to buy some pumpkins for Halloween provided
not only other fruits and vegetables, but also a small basket of containing, some red,
green, and yellow peppers for a still life photograph. I photographed the three colored
peppers as a still life and left them for a few days afterward. It was then that I noticed
that the red ones began to wrinkle. I left them in place for about another week until the
were completely wrinkled and then prepared them for this photograph.
I used a Nikon D810 with a Nikon 70-300 zoom lens at 150mm, and f/14 aperture. The
lighting is window light coming in from the glass doors on the left with foil fill cards on
the right and in front of the peppers. The image was processed in Camera RAW for
basic exposure, masked in Camera RAW to lighten and darken locally. I used Topaz De-
noise AI and Sharpen AI, and finally Aurora HDR at the default settings to bring a little
“crispness” to the image.
This round’s discussion is now closed! 8 comments posted
I really like the placement of the peppers tucked into the gentle folds of the blanket and the fact that there are three of them. Great composition. The blue in the blanket, as well as the pattern of the blanket adds interest and contrast to the wrinkled red peppers. I lightened the overall image just a bit as it seemed a bit dark to me. I liked it and thought the image was more inviting.
Posted: 11/05/2023 16:23:49
Charles Bartolotta
Thanks Holly. I appreciate your comments. I thought about making it lighter, but I like the darker image. I tend to lean toward the low key images except when i makean obvious high key image. Posted: 11/05/2023 23:48:04
That's great. This is what makes photography so fun. Everyone sees images a bit differently. Have really enjoyed your peppers. Posted: 11/06/2023 00:00:16
Charles Bartolotta
It was a tough decision: eat them while they were still fresh or let them get wrinkled and photograph them. Photography won out. Posted: 11/06/2023 17:24:02
Well of course. Only eat the subject matter if it makes it through the photo shoot! Posted: 11/07/2023 13:24:17
Charles Bartolotta
Holly, I tool your suggestion and lightened the peppers a bit and I have to agree with you: the image looks better. Thanks! Posted: 11/08/2023 00:02:32
Stuart Caine
I like your wrinkle peppers resting on the burlap baggies. I also like the green stems coming out of each pepper. It's a great contrast between the red and green, I like the image, good job. Posted: 11/15/2023 21:19:07
