Indoor Projects - Lighting When the winter gets too long, when excuses not to head out run plenty, when ... well, whatever the reason, it may be a good idea to work on an indoors project and practice different techniques. I like to explore the things that it's better to have answers for in the field. That may be playing with depth of field, testing out hyper focal distance theory vs. practical results, comparing mirror lock up or not, or playing with lighting.

That was the case here with the home-grown crystal formation. Transparent in nature, I wanted to make it glow. I passed on the usual suspect of backlighting and chose to light it from down below and from the front. I placed the crystal formation on a double sheet of black paper with a hole just smaller than the crystal to insure no light leaks around. The paper sheets and the formation were on a sheet of glass from a picture frame bridging two chairs. The gap between the chairs was about three inches, matching the hole in paper and the diameter of the crystal formation. And down on the floor was one Nikon SB-600 speed light (aka flash). That took care of making the crystal formation glow. To complete the set up, I added another flash from about 70 degrees front left.

Have fun!