A Gift that Gave Twice

Today was another day that had me stuck in the office, too much paper work and emails for my liking.  Plus all throughout the day I was trying to figure out what the heck I was going to shoot.  What I want to shoot was my computer…but the whole gun control conversation and all….  Then a UPS package arrived, it was a gift from one of my vendors.  It gave me an idea for later, much to the chagrin of Toni, my soon to be 11 year old step-daughter.  She knows there is Chocolate inside!

So let me explain something first.  In my office I have two bar style tables set up for my desk, they look pretty cool thanks to IKEA.  However, they would be very prone to scratching so I have glass plates cut to cover them.  I knew, someday the glass would make a great reflective surface.

After yesterdays lame picture I felt today I had to do it up a bit differently or my photographer friends certainly would mock me.  So the shot below was taken in absolute darkness in my office.  I put the timer on and set the shutter to stay open for 6 seconds and fired the strobe at the stack from the top then each of the front facing 3 sides to get the right amount of reflection on the glass.  This picture is RAW OUT OF THE CAMERA, ZERO WORK IN PHOTOSHOP OR LIGHTROOM.  There is hope for me yet.

 

Now the Camera information: Canon 7d on a tripod. Focal length at 20mm on the 16-35 wide angle lens.  ISO 200 6.0 sec at f/20. The speedlite was set at 1/2 power and I fired it 4 times in the 6 seconds.