Coffee, anyone else?

[Ofnuts]

This picture is also in PlayRaw but this isn’t about post-processing.

I have a fascination for this old coffee grinder (a Peugeot, by the way)… unfortunately it is bolted in a rather uninteresting shelf, right against a door frame (on the left), and the shelf is held by a big wooden bracket.

I have always wondered how to frame it. This picture is my solution but it’s mostly drive by the technical constraints:

• If taken alone the grinder is too vertical, so I added the bottle (that was a bit farther on the shelf)
• the angle bracket is made nearly invisible by shooting right on its edge.
• I also had nasty reflections from a window in my back, which I eventually fixed using a translucent flash umbrella to act as a diffuser.

On the self-complacent side, I’m quite happy with the “shine” of grinder bowl, the cups and the bottle.

So,

• does it look staged?
• does it look too dirty?
• would you frame things differently?

[paperdigits (Mica)]

I’d burn down the door frame or process it to appear as a natural wood color like the rest of the scene. As it is now, it is way too distracting.

[Ofnuts]

But now the other white part is even more distracting

[paperdigits (Mica)]

I disagree. It pulls your eye more now, but the eye eventually wanders up to the coffee.

[mbs (Miguel B)]

I like the colors and the textures. The image looks vibrant without oversaturation or oversharpening. It looks a little bit staged, but it’s still believable that this is just a kitchen corner somewhere.

[afre (Alan)]

@Ofnuts

If taken alone the grinder is too vertical, so I added the bottle (that was a bit farther on the shelf)

To me the bottle reinforces the vertical even more. The reflection on the lid is rather harsh and distracting. Could be duller like the adjacent tins.

@paperdigits

I’d burn down the door frame or process it to appear as a natural wood color like the rest of the scene.

I don’t mind the frame. In fact, the burned version looks really bad. Perhaps it has to do with the quick unrefined brushwork.

[Bbawt (Brian)]

Its a bit difficult because you do want to balance it but then its very narrow and tall. I tried it in a white frame just for kicks. Note you have to double click to open it as the frame blends into the webpage background.

[age]

It could help bring the attention to the written