Dying Flowers

(click photo to enlarge)

So I was editing this photo on my computer, when my mom walked by and caught a glimpse of the screen. And she asked, "What's that?"

"Flowers. I took a picture of them using the flash."

"What? You mean those dried up old flowers that were sitting in the living room?"

"Yeah."

"Wow. Even dried up old flowers can look nice."

I thought that was an interesting comment. Just the idea that there can be beauty in something that's otherwise unattractive intrigues me at times. Of course, with a vase full of flowers, you don't really have to stretch to find that beauty. I mean, come on, they're flowers. But even in the downright ugly -- the streets and the slums and the empty cookie bags sitting on a desk that no one seems to appreciate -- I think there's always a strange sense that, maybe if you look at it from a different angle, there might be a glimmer of something beautiful.

So whenever life hands you a lemon, light it from different angles and take a picture of it.

As for the picture itself, I was fooling around with this light-painting technique I read about on Strobist. Camera was on a tripod in a pitch dark room; the flash was hand-held and fired via its "Test" button. The shutter was held open as long as it could manage (30 seconds), and the light was fired off at various angles around the vase. I have to admit, I cheated a bit here. The flash beam wasn't as tightly controlled as it should have been, so some light spilled over onto the walls and my stuffed-animal Ninja Turtle. So I brought down the ambient light in Photoshop to get it solid black.

You can try it yourself at home. All you need is a camera that lets you adjust shutter speed and a light source (flashlight, strobe, whatever).