This week’s Random Object Wednesday is a special two-part series!  Our contributors for this week are Kristin Briley & her son.  This is Part 2.  If you missed Part 1 click here.

Let the fun continue!
Our youngest contributor to the Random Object Wednesday is a special boy.  Not only does he appreciate wearing bow ties and playing with toys—he also collects treasures like the items featured in this post.  His selection of random objects challenged me—I wanted to be sure to capture the beauty in these objects found in nature.

Kristin explained she finds the items in his pockets and backpack – clearly they are special treasures that are squirreled away for future discovery.  Let’s take a look.

Pine cone
I couldn’t pick just one photo but I did manage to narrow it down to two.

Acorn
This tiny object wasn’t easy to photograph!  Here’s my first try.  The color reminds me of peanut butter!

I decided to add some objects of my own—some dried leaves I collected from Michigan over 10 years ago.   I knew they’d come in handy some day!

Seashell
The seashell was also a challenge.  Here is my first attempt using fabric as a background.

I decided to try something completely different… black shiny fabric as a background.

More experiments with backgrounds.

More variations.

Geode
Geode from the Heard Natural Science Museum & Wildlife Sanctuary.  Grandpa helped break the rock open to reveal the surprise inside for his grandson.

Behind the Scenes
Here’s a glimpse at some of the materials used to put the shots together.

The plastic material is a light cover that I spray painted with glitter paint.

A few leaves from my collection.  The collection began with a leaf family friends gave me when I was in kindergarten.  I’ve kept it all these years later in the pages of a book.  Leaves seemed fitting to use for the acorn photo shoot.

Tips:
–  Experiment with your camera settings – like aperture.   Hoot Photography has a very handy page that explain aperture.  Click here to visit the website.
–  Use unusual and everyday items as backgrounds.  I used ordinary cotton fabric, shiny fabric, batiks, plastic light covers, poster board, dried leaves and reflective poster board.

Cameras used:
Big Bertha (Canon EOS 5D Mark II)
Canon G11 (to photograph the Behind the Scenes photos)

Date:  
October 2013.

Housekeeping:
Click here to see who will be featured in next week’s Random Object Wednesday!