Plants

I like the first and second a lot . . . the third doesn't hold up to the first two.

Years ago, I worked a process where I framed flowers against a black background, in a dark room and then lit them with a flashlight.  I moved the light around the lens in a circle.  This made the light look like it was coming from the flowers . . .

Ed

Well, I prefer the third one, so how's that to mix it up?

Really, I think it needs a crop from the right side, but I love it.  The colors are wonderful and this is by far my favorite lighting of the three images as well.

Travis

I don't know if I could even find the negs now.  This was during a period where I did a ton of experimenting in my spare time (how about exposing TMax3200 at ISO 25,000?) and then moving on.

But, yes, I did use a 30 second shutterspeed to allow me to move the light while the shutter was open.

Ed

I think #3 would look better with a bit deeper DOF. I like the soft light with those colors on it though.

Im using a D40 with default lens.. 18-55 with max aperture f/3.5... the way i get the narrowst dof is by zooming... even when the aperture gets bigger... The size of the flowers in #3 is around 6-7mm long (tiny)

Third was taken with 8s... The photo was taken in complete darkeness without flash, what i did was pretty much the same thing Ed did. I was moving the flashlight around the flower to illuminate it from the back, so that light would travel through petals and iluminate contours... I didnt use any black background, i figured if i was careful with the lighting i could only light the flower and not the background.

I faced a couple of problems when trying the technique... one was to get the right exposure... I figured the best way to get the right exposure was to set shutter speed to the total time i would keep the flashlight illuminating the flower, but since light was being moved, it was not bullet proof either...

Another issue I had was I wasnt careful enough in a few photos and moved the plant with flashlight... and got motion blur...

Its still a pretty fun technique...