Saponification Sunday...Camera Crazy

I have always envied the soap pictures of other soap makers. Slowly mine have improved but they have along way to go. My daughter gave me a light reflector to play with, that helped. And I made my own photo box, that helped too, but still...something was missing. (Who said "talent"?  Very funny)

Turns out, it was the Macro setting. It wasn't actually missing, seems it was there all the time, hidden under "scenes" just within the "closeup" setting. I found it by reading posts on this wonderful Facebook page I follow for soap makers called Soapers Retreat. I have learned so much from these people!

To get there I had to leave the AUTO setting on my camera and branch out to other settings. Glad I did. I also follow another great blog called Digital Photography School. They offer tons of tips each week, I try to pick ONE and use it. I adore the Internet, yes I do !

So with my camera set on macro I got to work with my new orange soap. At first I was a bit cautious
and took a pic from my usual distance.

Then I moved in. Slowly, so as not to scare the soap.

Opps, the orange is retreating. But look at those soap curls !
Then I moved in for the kill.

 

Wowza!

 

So, happy with that, I moved into another area of the house, my dining room and played with the late afternoon sun. The fun thing about this soap (besides the macro thingy) is this is my first batch made with Shea Butter.

 

 

It's not that I have anything against Shea, I just hadn't gotten around to using it. But recently, after a soap swap with Robin Blood of Kinky Witch Soaps, and using her soaps made with shea  butter...I was hooked. Her soaps were really much better than mine.  Back to more macro...

 

 

Again with the soap curls, cause they're cute. The recipe for the above soap is fairly simple. Coconut Oil 13 oz, Castor Oil 3oz, Sweet Almond Oil 3 oz, Olive oil 10 oz and Shea butter 3 oz. Lye per the MMS lye calculator was 4.48 oz and filtered water was 10 oz. No additional colorant was used, just 5x Orange Essential oil  2oz. I did throw in some soap curls and shavings from another batch of soap.

 

 





BAM!! Love that Macro setting. How come none of you ever took the time to tell me about it before? All wrapped up in your lives weren't you? Fine.

I should've stopped there but my OCDivity would not allow such so I kept playing. Bought these little metal birds at my friend Kathy Kupferchmids Antique Shoppe the other day along with these old printer press letters and they were just dying to be macro-ized. Who was I to deny them?

 

 

And of course just for fun, birds with soap. Why not?  Yeah I know, I should be the official photographer for the Academy Awards.

 



Don't forget..tomorrow is the first post of Raw Milk Mondays. You won't want to miss it.