Fruit Macros
Fruit Macros.
This was the start of a macro discovery, honing in on detail until the subject fills the frame edge to edge. The question was simple enough: how close can you get to fruit before the pattern takes over from the object. The surfaces fight each other. Blueberries carry a powdery bloom that any hard source burns straight off, raspberries have fine hairs that only exist if the light rakes them, and blackberries are dark enough to lose all detail the moment you expose for the rest. I used a soft even key chosen specifically to protect the bloom and keep the hairs, then placed small controlled speculars on the drupelets for wetness. Detail is held in the darkest fruit rather than allowed to go black, which is the whole balancing act.
It is flat overhead, full bleed, with no negative space and no background at all, so the fruit macro photography here sits closer to pattern than to portrait. Alongside the berries there are pale dried seed heads for a change of tone. This is the only Curiosity set built on a natural surface rather than a light effect. Everything else in these studies starts with the light. Starting with the subject instead was the point of the test, and I have not exhausted it.
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