How I took it: The Crab

Photographer: Al Jurina

Our friends and I were vacationing in Delaware, when my friend found this well-preserved (but not living) crab on the beach. He wanted to get some good photos of the crab, for use for his own study in illustration. After a little discussion, we decided to light the crab with flashes, so that we could bring out the texture and form of the animal.

For a background, we set the crab on a ping-pong table. We then set up two flashes with remote triggers at 45 degree angles in front of the crab at about 2 feet away. The light produced by the flashes was a bit too harsh, so we decided to diffuse the light by placing two large squares of paper towel in front of the flashes.

Much of this shoot was done as a spontaneous idea, so we had to improvise due to lack of equipment. While this is not the best shot in the world, the process is fun, and the photo definitely proved to be useful to my friend in his artistic study of the crab form. The following are the technical settings used for the shot:

Canon 30D w/70-200mm F4L @145mm
1/250sec
f/11
ISO 200

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