Fun in the studio today. Since fall is upon us, and all the trees are shedding, what better time to take pictures of dead leaves? And while you're at it, why not go all out and just do a full portrait session with lights, backdrops, and multiple poses? That's exactly what I thought.
Let me start by saying that a leaf as a whole is not that spectacular. Why do you think they grow in large groups? Because by themselves they'd be ugly. However, when you get up close and take a look at the intricate details etched into the back, you see a whole landscape of hills, valleys, highways, roads, and paths all branching off in various directions, going nowhere and yet traveling everywhere along the length of the leaf. Beauty and symmetry abound in the graceful forms as they bring contour, depth, and shape to a subject once considered to be insignificant and, as a whole, "not that spectacular".
Some brief details on how this shot was taken. I set up my backdrop about 3 feet from the subject. I used a clothes pin attached to a light stand to hold the leaf in place. I then set my camera on a tripod and used a 50mm macro lens to zoom in on the details I was looking to capture. I had to set my aperture fairly high in order to capture more depth (on the macro level, depth of field is majorly reduced). I then set my shutter speed to a relatively high setting (I wanted to capture a little ambient light, plus I was manually firing my strobe to light the leaf, so it was necessary to have a longer shutter speed). I set up a flashlight pointed at the backdrop to create a slight glow behind the leaf. I then tripped the shutter and started experimenting with manually firing the flash from different angles/distances. In this shot a fired from the right at about 1/8 power about 5 inches from the subject. I also used a gobo to shield the right side of the leaf, highlighting the center of the subject and causing the light to fade off towards the edges.
Anyways, I had a lot of fun and I'm excited to try a few more of these. Who would have thought that a silly, old, dead leaf could be to fascinating?
