Sleepy Pear

While shooting still life, I continued to explore the application of light, shadow, and texture. This time, I chose pears and paired them with sack bags. They were two ordinary subjects that were quite challenging to photograph.

For the setup, I first placed the sack on a tray under the large window in the studio, then carefully folded the wave pattern into a "V" shape.

Then the pear was placed, not standing upright, but lying down as if it were asleep.

Then I adjusted the wave pattern to produce the effect of light and shadow, which made the composition more three-dimensional.

With the refraction of light, I found that the surface of the pear had an annoying reflection, so I added a polarizer and rotated it to cut out the reflected light.

To enhance the warm tones, I used an 85 warming filter.

Some friends asked, when the filters were added, wouldn't the exposure time become longer? When shooting still life in the studio, everything is under control. Even if the exposure time is a few seconds, it is not a problem.

“When shooting still life in the studio, everything is under control.”

As a matter of fact, when shooting still life with a large format camera, some compositions even use exposure times of up to tens of minutes. The faint light produces a very soft effect, with amazing final results. However, when shooting long exposures digitally, it is always painful to think about the wear and tear on the sensor that comes with long exposures.

Back to the composition of the pear, I chose an aperture of f/5.6, which provided enough depth of field to get everything sharp and is also one of the sharpest apertures of the lens.

After carefully scrutinizing all the elements, I pressed the shutter. I must say I was quite satisfied with the final result. From making this shot, I gained a deeper understanding of light and shadow, and of course, texture.