Monday 2 February 2015

Spoonful of moods [Texture Tuesday]

Lightroom preset Moodswing by Kim Klassen

Last weeks theme in Kim Klassen's Be Still 52-class was Spoons. Kim inspired us to create moody photos using a spoon - including shadows, different points of views and depth of fields. Kim used two of her Lightroom presets, Darkmood and Melancholy, in her beautiful captures of dried lavendel on a spoon, lying on pretty, old note pages.

I drink a lot of tea - so does my husband and our oldest son as well - so I thought of making a photo series of green tea. I used an old silver spoon, my husband has gotten from his grandparents, together with a silver coloured tea container. The textured surface of the container made me want to keep it, even when we have a bunch of tea containers - now I'm glad I didn't give it to flee market. 

Using a cover of sushi stick box as a table top, I wanted to convey the feeling of preparing Japanese green tea. The textured blue paper of the box looks a bit like an old handmade parer. I chose it since it creates a vintage type of mood together with the silverware. 


Lightroom preset Melancholy by Kim Klassen

I took the photos in our kitchen, close by the window. I blocked the direct sunlight with a curtain and a low masonite board, to create shadows and accentuate the contrast and highlights. 

By the way, this spoon is my favourite... I use it for serving sugar to coffee and tea - I like the round form and the decorations, both on the top and also down just before the spoonful-part. Adding just a bit more contrast and highlights made the round forms of the spoon pop out. 

I fell for Kim's Moodswing and Melancholy -Lightroom presets. I tweaked the Moodswing photos a bit in Photoshop (I couldn't remember how to do it in Lightroom) - I desaturated the yellows a bit. 


Lightroom preset Moodswing

The Moodswing preset creates an old, worn, Eastern type of mood to the photos - a feeling I like a lot. These two images are my favourites - making them as good candidates for my Still Life-card project.

Lightroom preset Moodswing

The images with Melancholy preset, I diminished the shadows almost all the way to the left in the tone curve - to create more contrast and to lessen the haze.





The Melancholy preset brings along an old, vintage-type of mood, which I may prefer even more ... I play with a thought of printing these two images, the one above and the one below, on a canvas, and hanging them on our kitchen. 





Thank you Kim, for enlightening the inspiration through your courses. Watching your videos and tutorials I feel safe (I was gasping for air when I first time opened the trial version of Photoshop!) - You are taking us by the hand and showing how to use these photo editing programs like Photoshop and Lightroom. Just one step at a time. Patiently. Repeating the tips a few times, to assure, that we've got it.


Well, which prints would you prefer - the rustic ones with the Moodswing or the hazy images with Melancholy?


... All the best to your week,
Nina

Sharing with


Kim Klassen dot com

17 comments:

  1. I love how you thought about this and brought it all together. It makes sense and I love the rustic version best!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I do love the melancholy Nina. Photoshop scares me and I hadn't heard of Lightroom (I'm about to search for it now and look into it). Gorgeous shots! xx

    ReplyDelete
  3. I am rustic through and through, Nina...:)JP

    ReplyDelete
  4. Love what you're learning and your creative results, Nina. I agree - you should print and frame those two.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Beautifully done, and yes, you should hang them in your kitchen!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Excellent! I can see Kim's influence on these. When my computer crashed last year I lost most of my textures from Kim - I need to just break down and buy the set because they were some of my absolute favorites.

    Another vote for printing and framing.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Beautiful images! I am partial to the hazy melancholy images. They would look wonderful hanging on your wall!

    ReplyDelete
  8. The second from the last would look great in my kitchen too! These are fabulous. It's amazing what we can do in a small space with few items. It It also makes it much easier to me.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Gorgeous set of images. I loved reading about the set-up of your still life and your thought process for each image. Beautiful spoon!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Beautiful work and I love reading how your thought your process out....very inspirationa!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Beaiutifully done. Love the reflections in some pf the images.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Trying to decide which preset I like best. I think Moodswing. The contrasts are nice. You've done a splendid job with your compositions and edits.

    ReplyDelete
  13. very unique images how you display the items with the spoon.. I like the color and feel of your images - great work.
    Hugs

    ReplyDelete
  14. Nina! Absolutely breathtaking. Love them all.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Nina I absolutely love the results that you got from this, and great of you to go through your process on achieving the lovely results. Bet this class is really a fun class! Almost wish I had joined, but maybe next time. Kim is such an awesome instructor

    ReplyDelete
  16. All so lovely, Nina !
    The edits are wonderful, my favorite is 'melancholy' ... such gorgeous tones !
    Oh, and the spoon ... a real treasure !
    Have a nice week,
    Sylvia

    ReplyDelete
  17. great result, i wish i can also be a pro like you, I recenlty started learning photoshop, But yesterday my trail version expired, and now i start using Photoshop Online Free which is browser based editor, can you also make tutorial on toolpic which wil be so kind for you. Thanks

    ReplyDelete

Thank you so much for taking time to leave a comment! I read and enjoy them all and I'll do my best to to hop on over to your blog for a visit.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...
//