I Found My Thrill

by Kelly

As I sit here typing up this blog post, it is about 20 degrees Fahrenheit outside and the north wind is howling something fierce.  Needless to say, I am not feeling inspired to bundle up and head outside to find something to photograph for my 365 project.

To be honest, I had sort of forgotten how uninspired this time of year can be, photographically speaking. Seems like the other seasons are practically handing inspiration to us on a silver platter...an ever-changing array of colors and textures.  It's not hard to find magic.  But this time of year, it takes a little more work.  

So the other day, I decided to take matters into my own hands and look for some inspiration.  I happened to be cleaning out some old Southern Living magazines and in the process I stumbled across this photo.

It's that just so delightful??  I loved the gorgeous color combination and textures.  And so standing there over the recycle basket I decided that I would try to recreate this photo.  Use the relative quiet of Winter to practice on my still life skills.  Something that does not come easily to me.

So the first thing I did was to gather my supplies.  I bought two containers of blueberries from the grocery store.  I pulled my colander from the cupboard. I didn't have any blueberry branches, but I did have some greenery from a bunch of flowers I had bought earlier in the week.  And finally I dragged my favorite old, white chair from the other room.

Next I scoured my house looking for the perfect spot to set up my shot.  This time of year, my front door (which faces north) gets very soft, indirect light.  

{Thank you for not noticing how dirty my baseboards are.}

And then once I messed around with the placement of the berries and the greenery I started shooting away. Here is one of my first attempts SOOC.

Overall I'm pretty happy with the light and the composition.  Like I said, I had to improvise with the greenery, but I still think it works for this.

Next I moved the berries around a bit.  

{Please...don't say it...I'm probably the only person in the world who could overthink a basket of blueberries to this degree..  But it's a special talent I've mastered through years of practice.}

Now I'm pretty happy with this shot.  Nice composition.

But one of the things I really liked about my inspiration photo was the deeply saturated colors and the square crop.  So I played around with the processing in Lightroom.  I increased the clarity, vibrance, and saturation a fair bit. 

Yeah.  I like that.  Fun.

But of course I couldn't leave well enough alone, so I played around a bit more with the placement of the berries and the colander and came up with this composition which I think I like even more.

And then that got me thinking....if what I love so much about this photo is the green/blue combination, what would happen if I put the blueberries in a green bowl?

Yeah, I like that too.  Completely different feel, but still pretty.

See what happened there?  I started out trying to recreate my inspiration piece, and in the process, got completely inspired.  And after an hour of photographing blueberries I got inspired to make some blueberry bread.

It's like the gift that keeps on giving!

So I thought it might be fun if you wanted to play along!  Take this opportunity to play around inside and have some fun with your photography.  Find a photo either from a magazine or one of your favorite photographers - it doesn't have to be food (although that does have benefits) - and try your hand at recreating the shot.  

And just to be clear, what we are doing is learning from the masters.  Copying the works of art they have created to better our own art {painters have done this for years}. Finding our own inspiration. But the key here is to give full credit to the artist of the inspiration piece {asking for permission to use the photo if applicable} and not passing it off as our own.  Because that's not cool.

Anyway, if you want to play along, feel free to post your inspiration piece {with appropriate permission and/or credit} and your own, original take on it to our Flickr pool.  It's a great way to learn and have fun at the same time.

Happy Shooting!

Kelly