Postcards 101: Assignment Seattle
by chrisab

Comment by Shiiizzzam:
WOW !!!!!!! This is a perfect photo for a postcard ! Wonderful !!!! JUST wonderful ! Shiiizzzam

A Long and 'Rinding' Road
by chrisab

Comment by chrisab:
Okay, a couple of more notes. The 'road' was made with a little zesting tool that I bought Friday afternoon. Getting a decent road out of the lemons wasn't too hard - they have nice soft rinds. But carving the limes was a pain! It's impossible to get a smooth road with nice clean sides. If you look at the outtakes, especially the first concept shot, you can see some pretty horrible carving jobs.

This is one of the reasons why I selected the DOF that I did. I could have lit the lime better, and I could have gotten it more in focus, but doing that would have revealed other flaws. Also, my goal was to make the fruit pop out more in the front, and less in the back. I lit the blueberry really well with a large flash to the left and about fruit-level. This really lit up the blueberry, but also killed any shadows, which may be one reason some people thought I added the berry in later. I tried hard to reduce the glare on the lemon, but in the end it seemed to be a compromise between the berry brightness and the lemon glare.

Also, someone asked how I got the road to be so bright. The lime rind tends to be a brighter white then the lemon anyway. But to enhance the whole thing, I spread a little vegetable oil along the road with a q-tip.

A Long and 'Rinding' Road
by chrisab

Comment by jsabbarton:
I have just read how you achieved this shot... It's not only the oddness that sets it apart, or the fact that it's a well composed shot, but because 90% of this shot is the idea itself – tooth picks, who'd have thought it. I joined this site for tips on how to improve my photography and you've provided this week's lessonâ€Â¦ Thanks for tellingâ€Â¦

A Long and 'Rinding' Road
by chrisab

Comment by Kavey:
That's a blueberry? WOW! Congrats!

A Long and 'Rinding' Road
by chrisab

Comment by Konador:
a great 5th place! congrats. this was my personal fav!

A Long and 'Rinding' Road
by chrisab

Comment by mcmurma:
Congrats Chris! One of my favorites this week ' - )

A Long and 'Rinding' Road
by chrisab

Comment by drewmedia:
My personal favorite from the challenge. Great shot. Wanna do a "how-to" on it? :)

A Long and 'Rinding' Road
by chrisab

Comment by chrisab:
Thanks everyone for the comments, especially from KarenB who called it "wonderfully bizarre", which is exactly what I wanted this to be.

To answer the various questions.... there's nothing weird going on here. There's a lemon, a a lime, and a blueberry. The lime is kind of proped up on a tripod of toothpicks, and the blueberry is stuck on with another toothpick. The only PS changes are auto-levels and auto-contrast. Heck, I didn't even know how to crop to size correctly until Lisa and JMSetzler filled me on Sunday morning (thanks guys!)

I've put together a few outtakes with the timeline from concept to the final version. You can find them here:

//www.pbase.com/chrisab/outtakes

A Long and 'Rinding' Road
by chrisab

Comment by Niten:
Good Shot!!

A Long and 'Rinding' Road
by chrisab

Comment by Meggie:
Very awesome! What a cool and original idea, great colors and the dof definetly adds a lot to the photo.