MARBLES AND WOOL

It's a blustery winter day favoring indoor activities. I pulled out my macro lens which has been collecting dust. The marbles are from a game called marble solitaire, another dust collector. The ball of yarn was contributed by my lovely wife, the weaver. I do not have an indoor photo workshop. When I do indoor macro, at least one room looks as if it has been ransacked. Getting heavy marbles to stay put in a soft ball of yarn is challenging. Chasing marbles on a hardwood floor can try one's patience. I tried most of the Topaz Impressions presets, settling on Chiaroscuro III.

Both the lighting and the marble arrangement with only light ones in the top row ground this very nicely. That wool looks so inviting, too. Although I like it very much, I wonder about masking the Impression treatment off the marbles would give a textural contrast that might make it even better.

Good idea

This way gives a greater feeling of depth because it's apparent that the focus recedes toward the background, but I still like the original a lot, too.

I was thinking that before I read Dennis' thought. I love the wooly effect on the wool, and it seems like it would contrast nicely with a hyper-real treatment of the marbles.

At any rate, a wonderful image and it sounds like some bonus exercise in the bargain.

Hi, Gary, I love your arrangement and composition (and the idea of marbles and wool!). I like both but might be inclined to something in between on the marbles. Very creative work in any case.:S3:

I tried my hand at focus stacking using Photoshop's program. I added a patch of dark leather with a gradient as a bg and added a vignette.

Gary, this is way more creative than a still life bowl of fruit! The coils of textured yarn make a great base. My vote is for the OP. I really don't need to recognize what the round objects are and I like all those rough brush stroke lines and highlights of color. If you had a cat this could have been even more fun chasing marbles and tearing apart yarn :S3:!

A clever and pleasing composition for a winter day. I think this could be a theme image due to the contrast between the smooth round marbles and the textured strands of yarn, as well as the color contrasts. i especially love what Topaz Impressions did to the yarn. I like the OP and the second post. It would be hard to choose between them. The painterly look of the OP is lovely. Letting some of the smoothness of some of the marbles in the second post increases the contrast.