Day 1: Silverware

Oi Hivers,

Here I go, starting the 30-day challenge: The not-so-ordinary ordinary items challenge. Kicking it off with... Silverware! What a huge surprise! No... it's boring. Try to photograph boring objects... But I'm quite satisfied with how smooth and professional this turned out. This image could be used for a label on the packaging.

Silverware (or a tool to eat) is maybe the number one most used daily item on the planet. I could be very wrong, but I wouldn't be surprised if something else is used more than silverware (maybe a glass or something, since we drink more than what we eat).

Whenever I am eating, I usually just use a spoon. Which seems to be very surprising to my fellow Dutchies. I guess I'm just raised that way. The Asian part of my family usually just eats with a spoon. I never asked why exactly, but my father told me once that we're supposed to eat this dish with a spoon, that one with bare hands, and if you can; chopsticks. Not everyone may know I'm half Asian since I'm prettttttyyy white for an Asian guy. But in the Netherlands, half-breeds like myself are pretty common and I'm often recognized as an "Indo", which is 50% EU and 50% Indonesian.

So, whenever I have the chance to eat with a spoon, I eat with a spoon. It has always been weird to me that people here in the Netherlands eat some dishes with a fork and a knife. Due to the way I was raised, I just continued using a spoon, which is, by the way, the most efficient one of them all. You can cut, scoop, and do some heavy lifting with it :P. But if I were to eat steak or something, I'd use a sharp knife. But for everything that I can cut with the side of my spoon, I will just use a spoon. Lol.

When you think about it, it's quite remarkable how often we, well I, use a spoon. Besides using a spoon for spreading Sambal Badjak (extra spicy) on my breakfast bread, lunch, and dinner, I always notice that the cutlery drawer is always low on spoons. SEEMS I'M NOT THE ONLY ONE IN THIS HOUSEHOLD THAT USES SPOONS AFTER ALL.

Never did I imagine talking about a spoon... or silverware, but hey! This is quite an ordinary object to me. Even though I'm 100% positive that "only" using a spoon to eat your food isn't so ordinary to at least a few of you. And if it is normal, I just hang out with weirdos then. Or I'm just a bit off. Yeah, that's also a 100% guarantee.

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The creative process

Silverware is created from (precious) metals, which can give you quite some mirroring and harsh reflections. This makes it a bit of a challenge to photograph it. Depending on how you'd like to photograph it of course. I used a small piece of light fabric that I placed on a table. Then I placed a spoon, fork, knife, and stirring spoon on top of it. To get a smooth reflection, I used a huge white reflection screen which I placed right above the silverware, with a striplight shining through it. The angle of the striplight is slightly tilted, to get a gradient falloff in the reflection. Just a small fold of the fabric did the trick to add a bit of depth and would serve to slightly guide the viewer's eyes.

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Technical details

Camera	Sony A7 MARK II
Lens	Sigma 105mm f/2.8
Shutterspeed	1/6
Aperture	f/9
ISO	80

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About the challenge

_{Photograph and write a little bit about 30 ordinary items that I used a lot in 2022. You can read more about the challenge, and join yourself here. This challenge is just a little experiment.}

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Could I live without a spoon?

Probably, but it would make life a lot more difficult, so I prefer not to live without one. Honestly, I wouldn't know how to eat properly if spoons didn't exist. Bare hands are fine, but try that with soup and try to convince me again, you slurp!

Cheers,
Ruben