It's a Rock

I found this awesome rock the other day, I'm pretty sure there's a bunch of fossils in it. I call it a sandwich rock, totally not the correct term for it, but it looks like a sandwich to me. There a couple layers of sandstone, then a layer of gravely sediment in the middle with a bunch of little shells, leafs and other small organic matter. It's really really hard to see, but I swear they are there.

So why didn't I use a macro lens and shoot the rock with that? Because, reasons! No, I did have a reason. I wanted to get the whole rock, so you could see the layers in it, rather than just get the fossils. I might do a reshoot with a macro lens at some point, but I like how the photo turned out tonight.

I lit the photo with a ring light, which I think was the perfect choice. Simple, yet amazing. Shooting at f.8 and 1/32 on the strobe got me a really nice ratio. I didn't have to do any work to brighten things up or what in Ps. I did upped the clarity and highlights just a tad because I'm me, but that was about it. I love, love, the background and how the ring light affected it. You can see in the image what I'm talking about. Just draws the eye right to the center while still looking amazing.

As for editing, like I said, clarity and highlights a bit. I also did a little local adjustment to raise the clarity and highlights again just over the rock, and added a vignette around everything. Obviously, I converted to b/w, and the I added some blues to the shadows and just a snipped of yellows to the highlights. Add a little something something.

That's about it folks. Not much else to it. Ring lights work magic.

See you tomorrow!