Easter Eggs

© All rights reserved, Thorsten Kraska, 2010

Every year I color eggs for easter like many others do it too. It is not only tradition but also fun to do. This year I was trying 'natural' colors. My own experiment with natural colors like parsley or red onions weren't successful. The colors were very pale and I have to cook the eggs for too long to get them colored at all. So I was going with 'natural' egg colors I get from a local market for organic products.

The first color I tried was red/purple (cochenille, carmine, natural red) which originally is produced by scaled insects. I like the well saturated purple you can get as you can see it in the above photo. To emphasize on that beautiful color I used a very simple top down angle with just the basket and hay for structural contrast to the purple of the eggs. I kept the colors of the background as dark as possible so that the color of the eggs stand out well.



© All rights reserved, Thorsten Kraska, 2010

I tried yellow (curcumin) and green (chlorophyll) too. Both colors were well saturated but still have that earthern touch to it. Again I used the basket with hay, because the structural contrast is really nice. I kept the background in upper right very dark to get a brightness contrast. Especially on the yellow egg I tried to get a soft brighter highlight to create the feeling of sun light falling onto the basket with the eggs. The gradient into the dark gives a kind of homey feeling to this one.



© All rights reserved, Thorsten Kraska, 2010


I took up an idea from the former years in this one: a breakfast with easter eggs. I used pastel colored eggs here in a yellow basket to have all primary colors in the composition. The colors of 1st order can give a sunny and happy feeling. Pastel colors are not as active as the pure colors would have been, but they still create a nice sunny sunday feeling. The background is almost white with some repetition of the colors of the eggs in the napkins. The main viewing line is the ascending diagonal line from upper left to lower right which is also the direction of the main light sourec (window in upper left, soft lighting). I kept the upper right a bit darker to emphasize the 'beam' of light on the eggs. I added some little feathers for a natural touch here.



© All rights reserved, Thorsten Kraska, 2010

This was the breakfast idea from 2008. Again based on 1st order colors red, blue and yellow. And alos the ascending diagonal was used here which ended on the yellow egg.



© All rights reserved, Thorsten Kraska, 2010

'Coloring' eggs is an idea from 2009. Again with the primary colors represented in the eggs shown. No obvious viwieng line in this composition, because I wanted to keep a very casual feeling with no obvious order to be seen. This is a photo out of a series of three.




© All rights reserved, Thorsten Kraska, 2010

Also from last year: close ups on eggs with flowers in the back. I did that not only for yellow, but also for blue and red. The more monochromatic setting is emphasizing on the color and it seems to intensify the colors even more. The flowers add a structural contrast using the same color of the eggs.



© All rights reserved, Thorsten Kraska, 2010

There is no easter in our family without the traditional easter egg hunt. You never will get too old for this fun on easter sunday. I've entiteld the above photo "I found the last of the easter eggs". The hay and the basket in the far back should represent in this photo the natural touch of egg hunting in the garden. The milk can on the left as a reference to childhood when you have had milk for breakfast. The photo has intentionally more shadows and lights to get the idea of an early morning when beams of light hit the breakfast table. The shadows also emphasize on the sunny side with the green egg in front in the sun light. Actually it was cloudy and the main light coming from the left is from a window. I used it without smoothing it, but I used black flagis in upper left and behind the wooden board to get more shadows in the back. There was just a very slight bounce used from front to lighthen the shadows on the green egg a bit. I used the can as a flag too to avoid to harsh hightlights on the yellow eggs.
...hope you have found your easter eggs.


If you like to see more colored easter eggs, I would like to invite you to visit my Flickr set on Eggs.


I would like to whish you all a Happy Easter and many colored eggs.