Light Sources: A 60-ish watt lamp in Kurt Swanson's hand-blown, translucent fixture; Lowel Rifa with Egg Crate (used far away, low, and to the side for apple glow. Most of the fill was kept off of Josh Simpson's hand blown wine glasses with a flag.
Lighting Technique: Generally, transparent glass is most effectively revealed by lighting an area behind it.
Base: Polished granite counter top

The subject of most of my still work, of late, is Nature, but I also enjoy still-life photography.

Light and composition are so symbiotic that I tend to build images by playing, alternately, with both. I often start without a fixed idea and let the image evolve. Not always practical, of course, but it seems to increase the possibility of a timely visit from Serendipity. It was she, not Eve, who tempted me with that apple. I finessed the intensity of reflections on the polished granite surface with a (high-quality!) polarizing filter. That priceless degree of control is why my default-polarizing-filter mode is: on the lens.

Light Source: Lowel L-Light with 4-way Barndoor, Hollywood Strip, MR-16 100 watt, reflector lamp.

The lights are semi-permanently wall mounted (using Lowel accessories that allow for slight adjustments of angle.) This setup lights a "floating shelf" in the living room which I change when I stop noticing the objects or feel the urge to shoot.

One very small light, positioned about 80-degrees to the side of the camera-subject axis, produces dramatic shadows, textures and shapes.

Lighting Craft:
One way to achieve "the delusion of depth" on a 2D surface is to play dark forms against light areas and visa versa. The dramatically different ways in which a large, diffused source vs a small, or distant hard source can do this, is at the heart of the lighting craft.

Natural Light:
In the few years I've been shooting video and stills of nature, only on our land, I've learned how much more time I spend examining a rich abstract image than one where everything is instantly obvious. We all seem to love mysteries and puzzles and I find it can be the element that turns an otherwise conventional nature shot into one that's somehow special.

Like my hero, E.M. Escher's many brilliant engravings that took light, optics, and depth as their subjects, there are always little lessons in observation, hidden within the image.

My polarizing filter controlled contrast and reflection intensity.

Reflections Combining Natural & Artificial Light With A Frog's-eye View
For several years I've been fascinated by the wondrous warped-world perspective produced by convex mirrors. Unlike flat reflecting mirrors, water and such, half-dome mirrors focus reflections from even distant subjects onto the mirror surface! This means that small objects, like raindrops, will also be sharp. There is a downside: camera, tripod, and photographer are hard to hide, but it can be done. The daylight has been supplemented with a DP Light aimed at the ceiling, and a Tota lighting me.