Celestial Objects
We have planets, or stars, or a constellation on the shelf above the kitchen sink. It consists of regular small marbles held in a glass flower frog, and larger hand-made marbles from Italy (I think – presents from my mother) and a basket-ball sized glass fishing float I found 20 years ago on a Haida Gwaii beach. Also, there are some glass paper-weights made by a relative on my wife’s side of the family from Minnesota, many years ago now. I don’t think she makes glass art any more – these are all signed Kim Scott and three are dated (1975). She goes by Kim Buell and makes jewellery these days. My mother-in-law would give us one of these occasionally and we ended up with four of them, or more – there are four on the ledge anyway. When I was looking for things to photograph indoors, two of the paperweights ended up in front of the lens. They seem like something from outer space when shot with a macro lens. I am tempted to re-shoot these with a star filter just for the fun of it, but that will have to wait.
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Taken with SMC Takumar 100mm/f4 macro screw mount (m42) lens on a Canon EOS 5dii. Most of the images are at or near f22 (the camera cannot record this info from old lenses) and most exposures in the range of 3 or 4 seconds at ISO 200. However, some of the shots taken in live view, which I was using to help focus, are in the 1/2 second range at ISO 6400 which the camera chose for me. Lighting was natural from the window and overhead room lights.
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burnt embers 
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Beautiful! I love the orangey one especially, but they all are lovely shots!
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Hey thanks Judy – glad to see you browsing in my ‘back catalogue’ a bit. It reminds me of shots that I had nearly forgotten about.
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Abstracts through still life! LOVE this set, what truly fabulous lighting and details you’ve captured and shared here!
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Hey Toad – I really appreciate your comments – thanks so much. Very still these objects, but not much life to them. Which suits me sometimes, that way I don’t feel rushed to press the shutter.
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These are all super…well done indeed! It’s hard to pick a favorite!
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Such kind words! Thank you. What a great way to start the day – to come to the computer this morning and find so many cheerful comments from you on different posts.
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Ohh, the second image really captivated me…wonderful job!
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Thanks David. I really like the way you can only barely make out the edge – it and the background seem to be one.
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The second from the top is amazing. One of my favourites!
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Thanks Branta – that is my favourite too 🙂 I was going to use it as the first picture, but then thought maybe the first one worked in the celestial theme a bit better.
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Hi ken – thanks! That association with the NASA shots jumped out at me too and make the pictures far more interesting – I did not know that was what was in store for me until I looked through the viewfinder up close.
Other than an adjacent window (which faces ESE on the N side of the house, if that matters), the only other device is a black velvet cloth from a very old 4×5 field camera that I have (but never used as the roller blind shutter needs repair). The cloth is really useful, though it has a seam in the wrong place for some shots.
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We also have some glass art hear and there around the house that we have collected for many years. They have proven to be elusive photographic subjects because I never had a location to shot them properly. We are in a house that has some nice North and South exposures, so, after looking at your shots (great, by the way), I may have to give it another try. These are very nice. They remind me of some of the NASA shots from their gallery.
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