The indoor clothesline

WHAT
This shot was taken in my lounge room and is a close up view of the pegs and washing on the clothes rack we've been forced to set up in an attempt to dry the ever- increasing piles of washing.

This shot was day 8 of my 365 project (see link at the top of this blog for more info)


WHY
The immense ammount of rain we've had lately is still heavily making its impact felt on my life - it's nearly impossible to get any clothes dry!

Originally I had intended to use a photograph of my friends and their baby who were coming over to visit that night as my shot of the day. But when I walked past this now common-place sight in my lounge, the bright multi-coloured pegs were just begging me to photograph them.

I figured it was a fitting shot for my 365 photo as it told some more of the story of my life lately :) ie. a frustrated woman with limited clean underwear remaining!


HOW
I used a large aperture (f/4.5 - as low as my lens would go) in order to get a shallow depth of field. I focused on the yellow peg right of centre. Shot on a tripod in aperture priority mode, with a 1.0s shutter, ISO 250.

POST PRODUCTION
I played with it a bit in photoshop to get the grainy/slightly 'hipstamatic' look :) (increased black point, upped the exposure level, reduced contrast, increased clarity, increased highlights then added a noise filter to get the grainy look.)

Jelly shots for the New Year

WHAT

A shot of the inside of my fridge which, at the moment, is home to dozens of vodka jelly shots in preparation for my New Year's Eve party.

The green ones are lime, the blue are 'berry blue' flavour (they taste a bit like 'Demazin' cold medicine) and the red ones are raspberry flavour. I also have another tray of 'creaming soda' flavoured shots on another shelf.

The recipe for making these shots is at the bottom of this post

WHY

I took this photo mainly to document the jelly shots as part of my NYE party. I've never made jelly shots before and was quite pleased with the results - let's hope the party guests like them too!

I also liked how the light from inside the fridge lit the shots and made some of them appear to glow. Plus, it's not everyday that the inside of the fridge becomes a worthy photographic subject :)

HOW

I hand-held my camera as close to the tray of jelly shots as I could (but still allowing proper focus to be made) so as to avoid other fridge items creeping into the scene as much as possible.

Because it was relatively dark in the fridge and I wanted a fairly shallow depth of field, I opened up the aperture to f/4. This wider aperture allowed more light in to the camera's sensor which meant I could increase the shutter speed (1/13s) to get the hand-held shot without the need for a tripod.

I focused on the centre row of jelly shots (third row from the front).

POST-PRODUCTION

In photoshop, I increased the clarity, black point and vibrance to really make the jelly colours stand out. These alterations also made the rim of the plastic shot glasses brighter and highlighted the white 'reflection' on the tops of the four blue shots at the front.

I also cropped the shot to remove the milk bottle and other assorted fridge items that had snuck in at the sides.

Recipe:

I used 'Aeoroplane' jelly crystals

Place jelly crystals in a bowl.

Pour 1 cup of boiling water over crystals and stir very well to dissolve.

Add 150ml vodka

Add 50ml cold water

Stir again

Pour mixture into shot glasses

Refrigerate for approximately 4 hours.

NB. If you add too much vodka, the shots will not set properly. Also, to remove the shot from the glass, you may need to run a cake tester or teaspoon around the sides of the glass. Alternatively, you can place a small amount of oil inside the shot glass before making the jelly - I haven't tried this but I've read about other people who did this. I didn't know if the oil would affect the taste or not.

Some Christmas cheer

WHAT

This shot was taken on Christmas day at my mum's house where my family had Christmas dinner together. It depicts some of the table settings and decorations my mum had laid out.

I took a bunch of photos that day of the family and other objects in the room but I felt this one turned out the best.

WHY

I've mentioned in a previous blog post: http://kylietphotography.blogspot.com/2010/12/race-day.html the importance of capturing the little things that really MAKE a special day what it is- things such as table decorations, food, table settings and the little touches people have added. Hence why I opted to take this photo.

There were other table settings available to use for this shot, but because this one was on a corner it meant I could easily move around the table till I found an angle I was happy with. I also liked how the golden bon bons in the background were arranged at right angles to each other from this position.

As it turned out, I ended up sitting at this very table setting later on for our big meal!

HOW

Because I was indoors and there was very little ambient light coming in from the windows (it was a miserable rainy day outside), I used a tripod for this shot. Using a tripod was another reason I selected this particular place setting to shoot- it meant I could actually fit the tripod in without having to move too much furniture. A tripod also ensured I could keep the ISO down low (200) to avoid a grainy shot.

I shot in manual mode and adjusted the shutter speed until it was at an apprpriate speed as determined by the camera's light metre. This turned out to be 1/5s.

I used a short aperture of f/5 to make the items beyond my main subject blurry to really focus on santa - otherwise I risked losing him amongst all the other stuff on the table. Plus I like the blurry background effect.

POST-PRODUCTION

In photoshop I increased the clarity, adjusted the black levels, and increased the highlights.