Photography Tips: Closeup Silverware Shot

I know I have a long way to go as a photographer, so I’m always pushing myself to step out of my comfort zone and try new angles, styles and lighting.  For my cranberry applesauce recipe I really wanted to try and get a closeup of a spoonful of the applesauce with the bowl blurred out in the background.  The problem with these shots is that you can’t just hold the spoon.  You may not notice your hand moving, but the camera sure does, so it’s really hard to get shot that’s in focus without motion blur.  I know a lot of photographers have fancy equipment to get shots like these, but I’m way too poor to afford that, so I made my own!  Below is the set up I used to get the shot.

I shot this in our living room where the angle of light was really beautiful in the afternoon.  I have sheet curtains on the windows which help soften the light and also had a white foam board on the other side to reflect a little light back.  We have  a set of clamps that Eric got for a Christmas gift one year and we currently use them to make a really tacky window treatment (they’re all around the edges of some blackout fabric to clamp it to our window so that our bedroom can be really dark).

I was so excited to discover that they work really well for holding the end of a spoon, so my next step was to figure out how to attach the clamp to something else that would hold it up.

I put my camera on a tripod behind my couch and set up my background shot (the table).  Then I taped the clamp to the handle of my roasting pan and set it on our kitchen stool.  The spoon wasn’t quite high enough in relation to the background scene so I tucked a food storage container under the roasting pan.

It’s pretty crude but it works great!  So next time you have a shot in your mind, don’t give up until you get exactly the look you want.  You probably have things all over your house to help you achieve the perfect photo!