I was roaming the house looking for something to take a picture of for the Feb 2006 Photography Beginners B&W photo contest (theme: circles) when I looked down and caught a glimpse of my belt. I immediatedly took it off and thought about how to compose the shot.
I started with the belt loosely draped over a pair of jeans, but result looked cluttered and unnatural. After trying a few different things over a couple of sets of pictures, I decided that the jeans made a poor background, so I pulled out my trusty piece of white posterboard.
I laid out the posterboard, wound the belt up into a tight circle, placed it on the board, and kinda helped it uncurl. I placed the buckle over the end to give it some interest, then started took some test shots.
Portrait mode blurred too much of the belt and I wanted the eyelets visible -even in back, so I went to "Auto". The other problem was lighting -the halogen lamp I was using was causing too much glare on the eyelets. I brought out a lightbox (for viewing slides, but it works) for a soft light on the right, and an incandescent lamp for the left. The lamp is made to project light up, so I had to tilt it and hold it pointing down on the belt, but I had no way to hold in there. I thought of moving the lamp down and trying to project circles of light on the posterboard by letting the belt's shadow be projected onto the posterboard. It worked! -But I still had no way of holding the lamp in position.
I got my camera in position, and tried to take the pic using a remote, but the remote wouldn't work (batteries?). I ended up laying down on the floor, holding the camera in place with my right hand and having my left stretched out as far as possible, holding the lamp in position. It was uncomfortable, but it worked!
