This is a more recent shot, a return to trying to shoot against a backdrop and trying to shoot a subject that has a lot of shape and structure and is relatively ‘flat’ so that I don’t have to do a lot of focus stacking.
In the same session, I tried experimenting a bit with light hidden behind the subject. Most of those shots were pretty big disasters but I was reasonably happy with this one.
I wanted to do something with these potatoes that eluded detection in the depths of my pantry. I don’t think this was a winning staging. There’s a problem with anything that’s so visually unfamiliar and asymmetrical—if you go in for just a bare approach like the first shot, as if the thing speaks for itself, you don’t really get anywhere. In the end, I kind of wished I’d just worked with the potato on the back right, that had some personality, some pareidoliac possibility. But then that might just have seemed altogether too twee, too greeting-card: Mr. Spoiled Potato-Head.
The trailing lines of the decking give the potatoes exceptional dimension.