Frugal Still Life Photography: Complimentary Colors

This week's lesson in the Frugal Still Life Photography class was about shooting complimentary colors and trying to get an "old world" feeling through the use of shadows. The latter idea was also explored in last week's lesson on metering, but I skipped that lesson because I was traveling (and, well, the whole metering discussion also went a bit over my head). In any event, I decided to work with the split complimentary colors of purple and green. I went outside because I find that nature often displays the perfect color combinations. I picked a bunch of lavender and brought it inside to play with.  I arranged a white table cloth on a chair near a window and selected one of my Belleek trays to hold the buds. I like the crispness of focus I got on the lavender (you can see it better if you click on the photo to enlarge it) and the overall softness of emotion in the image. I wish I left more white space around the tray, but I wanted to avoid getting any of the details embroidered on the table cloth into the shot! I did a whole different set-up, but I decided to save that photograph for Valentine's Day . . . so come back then if you want to see it.  As always, I love feedback on my photography!