You asked for it, here it is!

The picture that I posted for last week's Project 52 spot was definitely one of my favorites for the year.  (you can see it here!)  I had a ton of requests to know what it is.  And by "ton of requests," I mean less than 10 people of course.  Which considering the number of readers around here, really is a ton of requests!

I've had this glass tree for a number of years.  I cut myself on the corners once, and since then it's lived a sheltered life on a shelf that the kids can't get to.  Which means it collects a lot of dust.  I pulled it off the shelf last week and ran it under water to get the dust out... and as soon as the light from the kitchen window hit the glass, I knew I wanted to photograph it.  

So the picture that I posted last week was shot looking straight down at the top of the tree, which I had placed on top of a white posterboard.  For any other camera geeks out there, I shot at f/4, 1/30 sec, ISO 400.  I tried a lower aperture first, but only the very top square was in focus and I wanted at least the first few layers in focus, so I ended up closing it down a bit.  I only made a few adjustments in PS, including a small color shift so that the glass was more blue than green, which was more in line with the effect I was going for.  Here's my straight out of camera shot, and the finished product:

I think the most important lesson to pass on from this is that you never know when there will be something right under your nose that makes for a beautiful photogrpah.  Get out there and shoot!