Veg Noir

When I did a little close-up studio project this winter, I was fixated on using a light background and forgot that I had a remnant of black felt that I could have used for the seamless backdrop. I decided to use it to reprise the exercise in color. It’s bigger than the tabloid sheet of paper I used in that post. It would be easier to keep the edge of the larger backdrop out of the picture so I chose the Variable Cuboid with the wider 60mm front.

What set me off was looking at a tomato very similar to this one as I peeled it and put it into dinner. I went to the market to get a replacement. I’ve been getting the heirloom varieties of tomatoes at the grocery store. They cost more, but they’re tasty and come in several visually interesting varieties.

I also bought several other types and already had cherry tomatoes at home. This was arranged in a pile more suited to the square format of the camera but after I opened the shutter and tiptoed away, it fell and ended up in this arrangement.

Let’s see what else I can find in the kitchen. In it’s youth, this apple was featured in the earlier post. The orange is even older.

A red and green pepper with a bit of parsley in its usual role as a decorative accent.

Paprika and cumin from the natural foods store.

Cauliflower.

Cauliflower with tomatoes.

Lemon and lime.

A summer squash with asparagus on a leaf of red leaf lettuce.

Several weeks later, Sarah exposed half a roll in the Little Black Cube for Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day. I finished the roll later in the week with more veg.

The same summer squash in surprisingly good shape after weeks in the refrigerator, this time with snow peas. I would play with arrangements in the kitchen before taking them up to the backdrop in the hallway. This time I didn’t want to have to recreate it and just did the photograph on the marble table in the kitchen.

Cherry tomatoes hiding in the celery.

A green and a Vidalia onion.

Before Sarah started with the Little Black Cube I did this self-portrait in the sun room reading Scientific American as back up in case something went wrong with the camera I was using for Pinhole Day.

Both the 60mm front for the Variable Cuboid and the Little Black Cube have hand-drilled .3mm pinholes 60mm from 6x6cm frame. Both were loaded with Ektar 100.