The Steam Engine.....
I promised a story first...so, This stream engine was made by my Grandfather in the early 1980's when I was a small boy. He would work on the design and bring it home at a weekend for checking and development. Saturday Morning's were special as He and I would be alone working and studying his latest project. One occasion we were testing operation of the piston and flywheel arrangement and with boiler filled with water and burner filled with meths we began our test. All worked to plan and the fly wheel spun quickly powered by the steam piston. Suddenly.....The stream engine was engulfed by flames and burned my Grandmother's table cloth (we were fooling around on the dining room table, much as I do with photography!) The stream engine once shiny and polished ended up black with soot and burn marks. The next week the steam engine returned but was never to operate again and laid dormant as an ornament for many years until I became its proud owner. One Saturday morning I decided to fill the boiler and fuel the burner to repeat the test and ascertain why it burst into flames. I found the piston still operational and it drove the flywheel but, I noticed a pool of fuel coming out of the burner due to its wick being too thin allowing too much fuel to flow. I imagine the fuel built up and ignited causing the fire all those years ago. mindful of a repeat I immediately pulled the burner unit out and stopped the test. With a better wick who knows how my Grandfather and I would have developed this, it would have probably been self powering.
Now for the science bit....
I started with no flash, just daylight to see what neutral daylight would do (see pic1). An okay image, but I wanted to create some shine and life as with the gong above. Introduction of flash tends to darken the background and lighten the subject giving more contrast naturally. Using a similar technique to the gong with a SB-600 remote flash I directed it straight at the subject and it did yield the desired shine effect but with heavy shadow. I tried to blend this shadow using SB-800 on camera flash aiming diffused light at the ceiling to fall behind the subject, tempering shadow. It worked to a certain degree but not entirely so I diffused SB-600 light using stofen diffuser then applied a AP diffuser (pic2) to achieve a soft light that did not introduce shadow. Finally I added diffused SB-800 flash pointed directly to put back some shine that double diffused SB-600 was loosing (pic3).
Final result, pic4. Image is also in the gallery under 'Still Life'
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