Very peacefull mood. I makes me want to be stressless for 10 minutes and forget about all the problems. I'll give it a try, thank you for this feeling.
Did anyone notice that part of the steam on the right of the image looks like a bird's head? Beak, head, eye... etc? I find the cup interesting. Is it a ceremonial type cup?
20 Nov 2006 4:52pm
@Dysren: I did notice that myself. That shape is natural (not produced in Photoshop). Yes, I collect Japanese tea bowls. This is one of my favorites.
I can't beleive I missed this pic yesterday. It's fantastic. please tell me how you capture steam like that. It's like looking at clouds and making up a million different faces.
21 Nov 2006 3:54pm
@Colour blind: I experimented with light coming from all different angles. I found that backlighting worked best. In this photo I used the sun as a backlight. It is just outside the frame of the picture on the upper right side. Also, using very hot tea when the ambient temperature is low also seemed to help. I took this photo at about 7:00AM when outside temperature is lowest (about 55 degrees fahrenheit). To snap this shot I held the tea bowl up in the air with my left hand in a position where the steam is back lighted with sunlight but the actual background (behind the steam) is dark to provide contrast between the light steam and the background. Then I snapped the picture with my right hand. I hope all this makes sense.