June 11, 2009

redivivus \red-uh-VY-vuhs; -VEE-\,

adjective:
Living again; brought back to life; revived; restored.


Today's word of the day was a pretty quick one, and it was similar in setup to another photo that I really enjoyed.

The way this works is that there is a black backdrop about four feet behind the subject so that no light falls on it, which gives it such a deep black. I also had a black cloth underneath the battery, covered by a piece of glass from our coffee table. It's a pretty easy way to get that reflection, which seems to be a sort of trend ever since Apple started advertising ipods that way.

The light shines on the battery and is (hopefully) only picked up there. Then, after taking the photo, I bumped up the contrast a good bit to make sure that the blacks are black enough. Sometimes light falls on the cloth underneath the subject, but that's easily fixed with a little post-processing.

The cool thing about photos like this is that if you were standing with me in the room, you would never see this image. The room's windows are open, there's light all around - but when you set your camera and lighting up right, something entirely new can come out of it.

That's it for today's word. If you've got any redivivus photos (and also, that word sounds like a spell from Harry Potter), send them to me in an email and I'll put them up!

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