This photo was taken for the 52Frames Photo Challenge: “Low Key.” This one represents a previous life when I worked retail, and every holiday season passed by so fast that I hardly had a chance to notice. This year is my first that I haven’t worked a lot of hours leading up to Thanksgiving or worked on Black Friday. It’s like a whole different life. Interestingly, I’ve had much more time to be creative and take photos. I’ve even had time to update my site to something that looks more modern.

I had to wait until dark to take this photo. This way, I controlled all the light hitting the subject. (which this time of year, I didn’t have to wait too long until sunset). I used one, little Godox LED light at its lowest setting to light this up. I used a white backdrop to diffuse the light. This made it more even. I also set up a small pop-up studio. It had a black backdrop to make the clock stand out. This setup made the image more “low key.” I ended up using a longer shutter time to keep the ISO low.

I’m happy with how this turned out. I originally was looking for a more antique looking clock, but I like the black metal-work that comes off of the sides. I probably could have focus stacked a few images to get the face of the clock sharper. But I enjoy that this image is straight of out the camera with no edits.

Nikon Z6iii, 105mm, 2sec, f/3, ISO 1400, SOOC