Pepper Macro C&C

DarraghCorrigan

This is a shot of a pepper I took a while ago. I originally didn't intend for it, but I think it looks a bit like a monster roaring...
Any C&C greatly appreciated.


From my Flickr photostream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/darraghcorrigan/

BengaLover

I love macro shots of stuff like this but sometimes a macro shot can lose its context, ie, this shot would look good taken so that you can see that its a pepper, but focusing on the seeds etc..Depending on the angle too it would look like a roaring monster, so I would shoot this again from a different angle.
I also found that chilling the veg or fruit first gives it a nice dewy look when its photographed.This is pretty true to colour tho, i do like it..

DarraghCorrigan

Okay, so you think it would be better maybe cropped a little further out so you could see the whole of the pepper?
I was originally trying to capture the detail of the seeds and the spongy flesh holding them, the monster look was only something I noticed after I took the photo, thinking that the shadows and flesh to the bottom right look like an open mouth with the skin each side stretched and the two clusters of seeds to either side of the centre look like a pair of menacing, hooded eyes. I couldn't see these before hand as I was using an off camera flash to the camera right, without any sort of modelling light.
I chose the angle to keep the lines diagonal rather than vertical/horizontal, to lead the eye from the seeds in the top right to the "mouth" in the bottom left, while still having some negative space in the top right to balance the composition.
I will try this again, from a few different angles, and I definitely like your idea of chilling the fruit. I've been thinking about doing some frozen fruit recently as well, trying to capture frost and fog just after they're taken out of the freezer, but I'm not going to have much time to work with them on each shot before they warm up.
Thanks for the comments!

magicbastarder

it's either cropped too tight or not tight enough; plus, the shot is dark and the lighting is not good in it; it looks a bit too directional.

dinneenp

I bought a 1:1 macro lens recently and have played around with it a bit.
Macro photography is harder than I thought; a lot of shake, very limited focus area, subject dark/need flashring etc.

In fact a lot of 'macro' shots I took with a standard compact I'm happy with- link

I can see the roaring monster but wouldn't have unless you mentioned it. And therefore it didn't hold my attention.

A problem with fresh food I find is that it's moist/has liquid so hard to appear sharp (e.g. kiwi).

Here's one I took yesterday of a pepper after seeing yours. I tried to have the seeds flat so that they all appear in focus and went for kind of abstract with most of the photo being red.

DarraghCorrigan

The monster thing is not meant to be the focus of the photo, it was just a side note, something I noticed after reviewing the shot.
Magicbastarder, you mentioned the lighting is bad, I think looking back on it now with this criticism in mind I would probably use a second light on the camera right, or maybe a reflector, to lighten the shadows, but I chose to use side rather than front lighting to bring out the texture of the seeds, I think a ringflash tends to flatten things a bit.
dinnenp, I like your Lumix macro photos, I had an FZ38 recently which I found took some nice macro photos too. At the moment I can't afford a dedicated macro lens so I'm using close focusing rings, although they can destroy image quality on anything less than f8, and even then i mostly use f11 or f16 to try and preserve as much sharpness as I can and get a reasonable DoF.
Looking at the shot you posted, I would say you really need to close your aperture a bit, as most of the seeds seem to only be in focus on one side.
I like the flat red in the background though, it's a very nice composition.

lisatiffany

It needs a little more light and a little tighter cropping. Also since you have it on flickr like that naming the image wouldn't be a bad idea as it lessens the chances of people skipping over it. I like it though and its a nice change from the usual everyday macro - well done.