Trying to be Serious

[Anonymous]

This is the one I can up with after some messing around.

Pentax K1, iso 100, f16, 1/200 (Flash Sync) 100mm. After some trails, I setup with a bare flash, camera right and a reflector camera left and above a bit. I decided I liked the shadows, so turned of a flash with soft-box camera left. Processed with Affinity Photo

 

[Frank]

Hi Craig, I think you produced a nice mid-day look with sunlight coming through a window giving us those nicely defined shadows.  And, you avoided a washed out red by keeping a nice deep red of the berries.  Not sure why the berry was in  the glass, but the glass itself is a pleasing element and perhaps gives a sense of mystery, but a lighthearted one, rather than anything bad.  All I could think of doing was try to warm up the image a bit which certainly changed the color of the table. I also tried to darken the green off the blade a bit.    Tried a slight crop down trying to get the corner of the table closer to the corner of the frame and giving a bit more of a triangular look to the dark area.

The story I see, is a pause in the preparation of a lunch or strawberry snack.  Very nice composition.

[Frank]

[Frank]

Hmmm…my image does look quite dark.  Your image shows more detail of the green stem of the berry in the glass which is a better look, too.

[beth]

between the two i prefer the original, but i do like the idea of warming it up just a little.  maybe somewhere between the original post and the edit.

[Anonymous]

I like the image and still life in general. Nicely lit, to my taste, though I do agree that the table top could benefit from a little warming up. I have difficulty in my own efforts with table edges. I prefer, but often have difficulty composing, with the table filling the frame as opposed to the suggestion that the glass might roll off and break or other such thoughts when seeing the edge of creation.

[JasenkaG]

I’m with Beth when it comes to white balance – it would be interesting to see something in between the original and edited version, not too warm but not too cold either.

[Anonymous]

Thank you everyone for your remarks and suggestions, Much Appreciated. I took the suggestion and toned it up a bit, interesting side note, I didn’t see the blue tone in the table until you mentioned it, I really need to work on being able to see that.  Also, this was my thought process in making the image, First, using complimentary colors, red and greens. Using a triangular layout. The rule of odds. From one of the articles, the color red being dominate. started with the three berries, then added the knife, and using the edge of the table along with items direction of lay to help control eye movement. I purposely added the glass to introduce a question. Decided I liked the shadows to help add depth.

[Anonymous]

This is the other framing I ended up with.

[Federico Alegria]

I do like this one Craig, overall I would only make a little bit wider crop (if this is a tighter crop of this frame) in order to have that small portion of the fruit visible. About the light, and this is just my taste speaking, I think one (or even two) stop down of light would be more favorable. This is a still-life, and sometimes still-lifes look better with that warm and soothing light.

However, if you are into harsh light, you should definitely take a look to Wolfgang Tillmans’ work. This one in particular is a favorite for me: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/58a3da6dbf629a3dbe90d18c/t/5b4e4972562fa780c1fb17dd/1531857371402/GV_01_md.jpg?format=500w

[Frogdaily]

Those Strawberries look delicious – beautiful red tones!  Love the use of complementary colors it really makes the image pop.

I like the way you framed the 2nd image but the perspective of the first image is more to my liking.  I would like to see the 1st image cropped in more like the 2nd image … keep the 16×9 ratio – cut off a tad bit of the bottom of the glass and cut off the end of the knife … this will cut the end of the table off on the right side but leaves the straight edge with black behind which I find very appealing.  With this crop you now have every berry on a 3rd intersection.

(I’m not a fan of how the shadow from the glass hits the strawberry in the back on the 2nd image)

Maybe try just a slight vignette around the edges to further direct the viewer to the strawberries.

The only other thing is I wonder what it would look like if the Strawberry in the glass was sliced?

[Frank]

Craig, I like your crop and especially the detail on the strawberry on the left.  But, circles are such pleasing shapes, I would try the look of zooming out just a bit to complete the circles on both ends of the glass.

[Lenny Wollitz]

I like the hard light.

[Anonymous]

I like the crop on the top, but the bottom bits, losing the completion of the berry and glass— not so much. You have also done some cloning that makes the berry above the glass look odd. I do like the rotation that creates that diagonal.

[Anonymous]

No cloning in this.

[Author]

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