Still life with vases

Today we had rainy weather but I felt like taking pictures. So I grabbed a few vases and a dried flower and arranged a still life on the kitchen table. I like the result quite well. Critique is welcome.

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I like this one.

I do have, small time, opinions about it though, and you asked for critique…

I find the crop to be too tight, especially the top and, in a somewhat lesser extent, the bottom. Not much more room is needed, but this feels just a bit claustrophobic.

The next point is probably harder to realise, knowing this was done in the kitchen: I find the very light parts of the lighting not soft enough. The reflections are too hard and distracting. Maybe you already did, but using something to defuse the light source(s) (even more) would have helped with that.

Anyway, just my 2c as always.

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Thanks for your reply. Yes, softer light might be a good idea. The light was quite direct in my improvized setting. For the future I will think what I can achieve in our kitchen :wink: . The crop was actually very minor. I wanted to use my “new” 200mm vintage Nikkor for the image but our kitchen has a limited size. In the end I was happy that the the vases fitted at all.
I am just experimenting at the moment but I hope to learn and do some “serious” stuff in the end.

Having a spacious, well lit room, ideally dedicated to photography would be such a nice thing to have. I did some experiments to see if my current guest and partly storage room could be made into a semi-permanent space: It just isn’t big enough and lacks a good natural light source. First world hobby problems…

I see you’re having fun and enjoy your new 200mm :camera:

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@Jade_NL: could not change the light but I added some “space” in Gimp.

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I like it. Nice tones.

We have a north-facing window in the kitchen, a bit occluded by the outside trees and some things on the shelf. Makes for nice light, both where it hits and where it’s absent. Some of my best flower shots are from grocery store bouquets in a vase in the sink, in this light…

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Breathing room!

I hope you agree that this GIMP edit, without the tension/tightness, looks better.

Yes, I do :wink: .