Grouper and drum

I'm working on some cascade pictures. They take forever, so I won't be posting any pictures of them for a while. In their own way, they take a lot out of me. I have to take a break every so often and make pictures that are fun, more or less to re-charge my batteries.

The dark background pictures satisfy me in a number of ways. Partly, they're almost fun to do. But, more than that, they often yield something I love to look at. Having a dark background allows the lighter forms to be held up for close examination. Take a look at any of Rembrandt's self-portraits (or many of the Dutch school portraits from 400 years ago, for that matter) or Caravaggio's pictures. There's a reason your eye is drawn to the contrast between light and dark.

So, here's a fish. It's based on a grouper, which is a fish found in the warm waters of the Atlantic, the Caribbean, and the Gulf of Mexico. Sorry, I've tried a number of times to get a better photo of this, but I think the dark background, which is mostly sepia and bloodstone, defies my attempts.

Here, I'll post another photo of it. Kind of has too much contrast, but it gives a better idea of how the background and the "fish" interact:

 

Here's a picture of a black drum. This photo is fairly close to the actual picture, although the background seems to have a little glare, even though I didn't use a flash for the photo.

This picture is about 10 X 13 inches. I put it in a black frame with a white mat and it looked pretty good.