Strobist rocks. Generous detailed lessons in dealing with light and a very helpful active community make it better than any photography class I could attend.

“Cooking Light” is the first assignment in the new Lighting 102 online “course”. The task seems easy at first — photograph a kitchen utensil. The hard part? Making a simple object look like fine art.

So, I figured I’d use one of the original Hawaiian kitchen utensils, the poi pounder! I didn’t have one though, but I was lucky enough to know someone who knows someone that does. Foliage was from my backyard.

This was actually light painted with a mini maglite snooted with my hand, 30 second exposure.

Check out the other great looking submissions too! I had a lot of fun with this one.