Over the years, my stainless-steel bench top has been an invaluable and much utilized ‘go to’ spot in my photographic endeavours. It’s surface, both shiny and ridged, has provided great opportunities for creating reflections in different objects – and I’ve certainly placed many kitchen items upon it, experimenting to see what I could come up with.
‘Outer Rim’ is one such image where my stainless-steel bench played a big part in its composition.
I have a large, scalloped-ridged bowl, and one day, after doing the dishes and tidying up, it just happened to be sitting on the bench, waiting to be put away in the cupboard.
Before “committing a neatness” (as my husband likes to say when I tidy up and move something he then can’t find!) I couldn’t help notice the reflections. The curvature of the glass, in combination with the curved ridges underneath, produced an intriguing series of undulating shapes.
Needless to say, it was time to grab my camera.
Initially, I decided to move in quite close and just focus on a relatively small area. I loved the way the shapes just ‘drizzled’ down, like a thick sauce or icing spilling over the rim of the bowl. It had a very ‘organic’ feel.
Staying close, I tried the shot on an angle, just to give the lines a little more ‘drama’ with a diagonal presentation. But I soon discovered there was a limit to how much I could do with such a constrained point of view.
I decided to pull back and include more in the shot.
Now I was starting to feel a bit happier.
There was more variety and contrast in the shapes:
The ‘drizzling’ reflections in the scalloped glass produced lovely ‘V’ formations.
The edge of the bowl itself provided a strong curving line.
The diagonal straight lines of the stainless-steel in the background echoed the glass bowl’s diagonal lines delineating the scalloped sections.
Deciding I was now on the right path, I continued to refine my shots to achieve the best combination of elements I could.
After much experimenting and pouring over pictures after the shoot, I chose this shot – it’s the original image for ‘Outer Rim’. You can see it includes all of the contrasting elements I wanted, and, the reflections in the scalloped glass are even more intense.
For the final presentation, I decided to go for a square crop, which helps to focus your attention into the image and absorb the interplay of lines and curves (at least it does for me!)
I also removed the slightly ‘bluey’ tinge in the original, opting for a more pure, black and white look and feel.
My final tweak was to flip the image 180 degrees and then flip it horizontally, as I felt this worked more successfully with the square crop.