WHAT IS IT—IN THE KITCHEN?

Suffering from winter’s cabin-fever recently, I began a photographic exploration of my kitchen.

Taking a peek at common objects from an unusual perspective, or fiddling with lighting, produced some interesting images. Of course, if the authorities had witnessed my behavior while doing this project it likely would have led to an institutional commitment of considerable length.

Regardless, put on your thinking cap and join us in this expedition. An explanation of the photos; what the subject is and how it was done is below. No peeking until 1) you have identified the photo or, 2) your ears begin to smoke.

Top: A gob of plastic wrap shot close-up with the macro lens and sharply cross lighted by a Mini-MagLite flashlight with a red jell. Exposure was 1/5th sec. f/6.3 and ISO 400.

Next lower: Dry cherry Jello furrowed by the tines of a dinner fork; another close-up with the macro lens and strong cross-lighting from a spiral neon bulb.

Third: A plastic pot scrubber, naturally. Again, a macro lens close-up.

Bottom: A raw egg; yessiree! The egg is sitting on a black felt cloth and illuminated from behind by a very bright 2-D cell LED Mag-Lite. The lens was the walking-around one and exposure was at full telephoto, 1/60th sec., f/5.6, ISO 400.

Notes: The macro lens is Canon’s EF100mm f/2.8 USM and the "walking around" one is Canon’s EF-S 17-85mm f/4.5-5.6 IS USM. A tripod was used because of the slow shutter speeds and shallow depth of field in macro photography. Photoshop was applied gently but most of the creative work was done with the camera and lighting.