Orbalicious - The Photography of All Things Orby

Good friend +Charles Strebor introduced me to the wonderful world of photographing with things. Things change your photography, they introduce a new creative element that is fun to pursue. They change what you do and how you think.

In this series, I'm exploring a glass 80mm spherical orb purchased from the auction site of the moment for the princely sum of $10 including shipping from the poeple's republic.

Many people when they try this shoot only the orb and not what is in it or beyond it. I want to use it to explore the world of form and texture. To bring those things into a new focus and new creative imagery not possible without the introduction of the orb.

The image above captures the flames of the Eternal Flame at Melbourne's Shrine of Remembrance.

Using the orb to enhance an existing form can be a lot of fun, in this shot above I've used the orb to contrast with the hand chipped granite blocks and used it to bring lighting from the harsh tungsten lights overhead and to the right onto one of the blocks giving further contrast and interest to the image. The flare of light from the ball while a little distracting centres the eye letting it rove out again into the image.

The final image of the blog again makes use of the granite of the block work giving a harsh appearance and contrast to the smoothness of the ball. The impressive edifice of the shrine is present reflected from the far side of the orb as is the city skyline in the bottom of the ball.

Photographing with orbs can be a little tricky, for reflective shots you need to focus within the orb on the object you wish to see and ensure there is adequate depth of field to show or hide the surrounding features as your creativity wants.

I've seen people making fun of the orb shots community members are generating, this really doesn't bother me. They've yet to take the first steps out of the slime pool of documentary photographer into the more interesting and fun times of creative photographer. Dare I say even artist.

There is a small Google+ community called Orbaliciousness where people portray their achievements. It's a lot of fun go take a look and perhaps join in.