Photo by Richard Nicholls
T is for Toy Cars
This image is part of a year-long project alongside 14 other artists of all disciplines, each of us is making one piece of work a week. The culmination of the project will be an exhibition of nearly 800 pieces of work.
I’m making a series of still life photographs using a 1953 sweet tin commemorating the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Sized approx 4.5 x 6 inches and 1 inch deep, the tin acts as a frame and a constraint in deciding what can be fitted in. Additionally, the subject of each image corresponds to a single letter of the alphabet, each letter used twice during the project.
This shot came together quickly using the toy cars left lying around after a visit from my grandson. They stacked in the tin with relative ease and adding the cars on the sides with the red and white colours placed diagonally finished off the composition perfectly.
Post processing notes:
I’m a newcomer to ON1 coming from Lightroom which I've used from version 1. So it’s taken a little while to modify a tried and tested workflow but I’m getting there. I don’t do extensive editing so this one has had basic exposure adjustments to the image as a whole. I’ve set up a custom curve and vignette that I apply as a preset on import then tweak as each image dictates. This series of tin pictures are all taken with natural light coming in from a window on the right so there’s a brush adjustment to tone down that side of the image and darken the background back to black. On this one I didn’t use a reflector so there has also been a brush adjustment to lighten shadows on the right hand side within the tin. A bit of sharpening and we’re done.Exif information:
| Copyright: | © Richard Nicholls 2025 |
| Camera: | E-M5MarkII |
| Aperture: | f/5.6 |
| Focal Length: | 17mm |
| ISO: | 200 |
| Shutter Speed: | 7/10 sec. |
| Created: | January 12, 2025 03:21:29 |