Yet another entry in the Making Of series.
On Edge was my submission for the fifth qualifying round of the Last Photographer Standing competition which had themes of Translucent or Silhouette. The theme I had in mind for this shot was translucent and when I was planning it I had in mind to show the translucence of the pepper by using a strong enough back light to make the pepper apparently glow from inside. However, many people who saw the shot picked up first on the silhouette of the knife.
The set up for this shot was really quite simple. I used two sheets of white foam core and a couple sticks of scrap wood I had sitting around the shop. The sheet of foam core I used for the floor had a hole cut in it (it is black on the other side and its normal use it to hang over the lens when I want to hide the reflection of the camera in glass or metal subjects). I then slid the flash under the floor so it fired up through the hole. Normally I trigger the flash with and ST-E2, but in this case I had it shoved down where the IR don't shine so I ended up using a cable trigger instead.
The one flash is the only source of light in the shot. The gradient in the background is scatter off the knife and the pepper; the glow of the pepper is light transmitted through its flesh from behind; the light on the stem comes directly from the flash. Yep, some people use tupperware as a lighting modifier, I used vegetables. The knife, along with being a player in the scene is also serving as a gobo to hide the flash from the camera.
