W o W
White in white on white on white was recently mentioned half in jest in a forum. In relation to a photo that a member posted, someone jokingly suggested that for their next subject, they might want to photograph a white cup on a white saucer on a white background full of milk!
A few people had a go at this most challenging situation, and of course, I thought that I could at least acheive a reasonable result myself!
I chose to skip the white milk in the cup - it would have been a real PITA to add milk (or any liquid) to my once again very temporary setup.
Now, You might think that taking a photo of something white would not be too difficult. After this little exercise, I would now agree! There are a whole lot of things that you need to consider when shooting white, and the main one is that you really do need to avoid blowing the highlights!
So, Gather up the necessary props. I used a white mug and saucer and was going to use my white linen backdrop but in the end didn't. Instead, I chose the white vanity unit as the background.
Yes, The Bathroom was my "studio" for this quick shoot. One reason I chose the Bathroom is that in addition to the white background, it has floor to ceiling white tiles (great for reflecting light). Another reason I chose the Bathroom is the fact that we have 4 Halogen Spotlights/heatlamps in there. So, a few quick shots were done to determine exactly what the lighting was doing, and after the first one, I decided I really needed to shoot this fully Manual.
A Digital Camera ideally wants to meter and average out the scene to an 18% grey - and this would have meant severe underexposure. So, It was a case of getting close, and a bit of trial and error to get the metering near where I needed it. This is definately a case of where the histogram provided an excellent indication of the exposure.
So, Once I had the metering sorted, I added even more light to the shot in the form of a Flash. The Halogen lighting provided around 1200Watts of power, and to that I added my Flash at full power (Guide number 36) and bounced it off one of the white tile walls to totally obliterate the harsh shadows that would have been present from the overhead halogen lights.
I have put up the 4 best (all similar) into a Gallery so you can see the results. Of course, There was a little bit of post processing required in order to get the images to come to life. I did some curves and levels adjustments, some sharpening and cropped out a few distracting elements from the edges.
