For the final assignment in my close-up photography class, we were to take a photograph of something with four different textures.  After a great deal of experimentation, I ended up four fairly boring pictures of a pear that we had.  So, to make it more appealing to me, I ran it through Topaz Effects and got the above.  What it looks like is a high school art assignment!

The textures (clockwise from the upper left) were a white towel, outdoor table for the Big Green Egg, a blue hand towel, and a wooden cutting board.

Here’s the original:

Once again, my failures ran amuck.  I was trying to do tea and chocolates, but due to the weather this morning, I had to do it inside.  The lighting was too dim and the focus is all soft.

I took my teapot and chocolate outside and did a final shoot on the deck.  It was unfortunately at dog level and as I checked the LCD screen of my camera, the miniature pinscher came over and started nibbling on the chocolates.  He was quite indignant that I wouldn’t share with him!  I, on the other hand, didn’t have quite enough to shoot again nor did I have many left to taste for myself later.  Thankfully he didn’t actually swallow any before I caught him, as chocolate can be fatal to dogs.

The picture above is one of the ones that didn’t turn out.  The chocolate should be sharply focused and it’s not.  However, it’s probably good enough I can do something with Topaz Labs Effects and salvage it.  I think I’d try taking the picture again when the lighting is better, using a better depth of field so the chocolate and teapot are in focus, and tripod mounting my camera so I can use a lower ISO and still have a crisp focus to it.

I’ve enjoyed the class and certainly got out of my comfort zone to try different things!  Some of it was frustrating, but there’s no other way to learn except by doing.

Creativity Tea Topaz Labs Big Green Egg Bryan Peterson chocolate close-up photography miniature pinscher pears tea teapot textures Topaz Effects