tomato

So here I am showing my attempts at lighting up the guts of a tomato – I have named my tomato Tommy. I thought this would be a bit easier than it turned out to be. I am still working on a way to get rid of the ring around the bottom where the tomato is sitting.

I first started out with the tomato sitting on top of a plastic diffuser.  I knew I had to direct the flash through the tomato but not around it. I

started by placing it on top of stack of old CD’s using the whole in the center to direct the light.

As you can see this resulted in better light direction but the reflection off the CD is distracting and the light from the flash is creeping through the bottom. I then covered the top CD with black tacky paper. After hunting around for something to set the tomato on that might direct the light better I came across a small spool of soldering wire.

This did direct the light better and the CD no longer reflected it all over the place but it was still not there yet.  The light bouncing out from underneath where I have my SB800 is hitting the wall behind. I grabbed some square filter cases and placed one on each side underneath and one behind. And after using more tacky paper to fill in the cracks between the cases it started to look more promising.

After playing around with the flash intensity and different shutter and aperture setting I got a little closer to what  I envisioned. Now I need to figure out a way to get rid of the light at the bottom. I am thinking maybe setting the tomato on a longer tube – but that will be another night in the future. Besides this morning I discovered that  someone had eaten Tommy Tomato.

Click on any photo to see a larger version if you choose.