Tuesday, 2 February 2010

033: Turnip Textures

f/8, 1/180 sec. ISO 100, 50mm M42, 52mm extension, low power flash, white reflectors. Another one-off shot. A little sharpening and contrast added afterwards.

OK, it's a detail of a turnip. But forget about that for a moment and consider how it seems to resemble the surface of a boiling, swirling gas giant planet... Now there's imagination at work! In this way it reminds me of some of the space travel effects in Flash Gordon (You know, that one. The fantastically camp movie.) There'd be no turnips on Mongo, I'd bet.
In fact, I'd bet that a great deal of us have never eaten a turnip, in the same way very few have sampled kohl rabi. Apart from at this time of year, they're quite a rare occurence in your local grocery, and not many people have much to say or suggest about them. My advice is NEVER boil them, consider eating them raw in salads, and also try to find the yellow-orange ones. They have the best taste.

This image has reminded me that I have to be more careful controlling the lighting on very high magnification shots, as contrast can start to drop off quite dramatically if light bounces around too enthusiastically in front of the lens element. I used a decent hood, but the shadow areas look very washed out, and turning up the contrast too much affects the rest of the image badly.

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