Coffee to enjoy

Recently I played around with the colour and shapes of a cup of coffee. Shot at available natural light I pretty much enjoyed this little exercise of applying shallow depth-of-field to this stills scenery.



Hope you can enjoy the picture as well. Feel free to comment if you like to.

Bernhard

I was just enjoying a cup of coffee myself when I saw this. It certainly added to my enjoyment, thanks for sharing.

Cheers,

Cem, so you added the part no picture can give to any viewer - the taste and smell of a fresh cup of coffee. Thanks for your comment.

Cheers,

Bernhard

Bernhard Rees said:

Cem, so you added the part no picture can give to any viewer - the taste and smell of a fresh cup of coffee.

Click to expand...

Ah, but there lies the challenge for the photographer, to trigger that part of our brain by visual stimulance only. Not easy, I admit.

Bernhard, I like your image, although perhaps a bit of light on the coffee itself might have helped it, giving a enhanced sensation of translucence near the contact rim between coffee and cup. Just wondering.

Cheers,
Bart

Bart, quite an interesting aspect you mention about adding a translucent touch to the coffee itself. Exactly this was a detail I decided to follow to the opposite direction in this particular image. But I agree, it is definitely worth to re-consider for an upcoming session.

Cheers,
Bernhard

Bart_van_der_Wolf said:

Ah, but there lies the challenge for the photographer, to trigger that part of our brain by visual stimulance only. Not easy, I admit.

Click to expand...

Starting off with "Ah!"

now that's a sign of good coffee, indeed!

Bart_van_der_Wolf said:

Bernhard, I like your image, although perhaps a bit of light on the coffee itself might have helped it, giving a enhanced sensation of translucence near the contact rim between coffee and cup. Just wondering.

Click to expand...

Bart,

It's this detail on perception, that's so important. What "is" is not so important as what's perceived. I would never have thought of this detail.

Asher

Well done Bernhard, the camera angle and the selective focus on the cup's ear is an effective invitation to grab the coffee. The light and the styling are good too. This works just fine. Now the "but" . I think that, from an artistic point of view, the idea should be developed further to rise from good to great.

Well said Ruben...and well done, Bernhard.
Although I like this image very much, there's some aspects that are putting me off.
Something about the way the grain of the table follows the angle of cup's handle.
It seems to direct my eye away from the subject and directly to your copyright logo.
If nothing else, I'd try it w/o the logo.
Nonetheless, a very nice image - thanks for sharing!

Asher,

As always every single image is seen by every viewer in a different way. The one viewer is looking into details another one does not pay any significant attention to. We all are familiar with this crazy situation. Funny enough Bart addresses a particular detail I have decided to answer in a different direction during post production. And I really appreciate this discussion very much since it helps me to dig deeper and improve my approach to photography.

Cheers,
Bernhard

Ruben Alfu said:

... I think that, from an artistic point of view, the idea should be developed further to rise from good to great.

Click to expand...

Ruben, John,

There is always some space to improve. And I am far away from thinking this image is perfect. At least it is well received here, so the little time I spent to set up and shoot this scenery was a good invest. Even more since I enjoyed this cup of coffee directly after the shoot - it was still hot and fresh.

Logos on pictures can be discussed very much. It is pure coincidence my logo is in the direct path of the wood's grain underneath and the cup's handle. Looking at images on the web I tend to blend out such logos even if they are much bigger in size or shape. Nevertheless the general direction of lines here make it hard not to follow them. If so it is bad luck and I might have done better to attach my logo to the upper edge instead.

Cheers,
Bernhard