I must have walked by these peppers a dozen times during a two day period.  Because of their texture, shape, and color, I couldn't help but notice them, and finally I couldn't resist.   "Enough!"  I stomped out to the garage to get my camera and lenses.

It started with a simple composition of three peppers centered in front of a simple red bowl with fruit:

I've been playing with a new piece of software and took the image above and modified its background on the computer.  What do you think?

Next, a blue bowl and an offset compositon:

Now I started looking around for more props and I noticed that the stem of one pepper mimicked the shape of the spout of a tea pot.  Who could resist? 

That was my initial effort and the next thing I knew ... those beautiful peppers were in the oven being roasted!   :)

Have you heard of Edward Weston and his photography?  He's long been a favorite of mine.  I remembered one of his famous images ... a black and white photograph of a Green Pepper.  Its a masterpiece and I'll post a link at the end of the blog for you.  I wondered if I could approach these red peppers in a similar manner using the current technology?  In the super market two days later, I spied some more red peppers with slightly irregular shapes.  Look out Edward Weston!

The last two images are my favorites.

My "studio" consists of a black round oak table and off white wall.  All of these images were shot there with natural, soft, filtered light from a southern facing window.  The first four images were taken with a Nikon D800 and the last with a Nikon D4.

Five red peppers were hurt during the process of photographing them.  They have ended up in a slightly altered state in the refrigerator. :)

Go here to see Edward Weston's green pepper photograph: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepper_No._30

Enjoy!

Bye for now,

Adam

P.S.  Did you remember that you can Left Click on any to see a larger version?  Try it out on the  last Pepper!