Snakehead Cowry, side profile

By taking just a few flashes with me on trips, I can create DIY studio shoots wherever I may be.  Take the image to the right, for example: you’re seeing a snakehead cowry. We found this shell (about 3 inches long), washed up on mile 69 beach, just south of Hapuna beach.  A gift from moana, one could say.  Its owner had long since been eaten, this being just a memory of a life that was.

Now, the sea-lover in me wanted it in the deeps.  What a perfect home for a young hermit crab!  But the photographer in me wanted to see it up close, under the lens.  So to the condo it went, for a short while.

Here’s the problem with a seashell like this: it’s shiny.  Like many shiny objects, it’s tough to photograph.  You need broad light sources, but they can’t be overpoweing. Ideally you would use a professional light box. No such luck, but I did have: three flashes (I only needed two, though), a softbox flash adapter, an Oceanic sales brochure, and a wooden table.  Some tweaking of the layout, and this is how I ended up shooting that shot:

Flash setup for the Cowry shot