Caroline sat waiting. The warm mug between her outstretched fingers beginning to take the edge off the the damp cold that seemed to have followed her into the coffee shop. She looked up suddenly, her eyes drawn to movement at the door but it wasn’t her. She looked down again at the fingers of her left hand, the lines of age just beginning to show in her knuckles and she rubbed them absently. Anxious, her head jerked up towards the door again but she still wasn’t there. The clock over the window to her left a reminder that she was at the very least late, but probably… her mother wasn’t coming.

As I was photographing the coffee shop I was drawn to the mugs that sat on the Sineso machine. There was a utilitarian feel to the stacks but enough random placement and tilted lines to make them visually interesting. The cups where all white and I knew I would convert it to black and white but I wanted a treatment that wouldn’t loose the interesting lines in a field of white. I brought the image into Nik Silver Efex Pro and chose an underexposed effect that brought more gray into the image and emphasized the reflections in the cups. I also darkened the background so that it would not distract from the main focus of the image. I was really happy with the way that reflections give life to the image; reflections in the cups in the stainless steel bar that cuts across the cup and in the bright line that runs across the bottom of the frame.

For my other photos from this coffee shop shoot check here and here.

-Russell Berg