A black backdrop may make it a bit easier but you don’t need one. Increasing the distance between your subject and what’s behind it helps a lot so that your light source isn’t illuminating whatever it is if possible. I’m doing this in a really tight area so I get grey/lightened patches in my pictures from the flash hitting the wall. Tighter aperture (higher number) + a flash or just a light on the subject (flower) will help give you an invisible background. Can do it at wider apertures as well but narrow apertures make it a bit easier. I think wide aperture + fast shutter speed would work too.
If you can shoot in manual mode and just get comfortable with the exposure triangle
Aperture , ISO & shutter speed will all affect the exposure so you may have to reduce shutter speed (or use a brighter light) in order to compensate for the more narrow aperture.
I’ve gotten “black background” shots inside the tent before but you have to be careful with light reflecting off the mylar sides.
They never did any of that in our school. They were basically promoting the idea that if you got within 5 feet of the stuff you would be hopelessly addicted spending 200-400k a year on codeine before deciding to rip off all your own skin when your codeine inevitably gets laced with pcp.
Ahh OK I have a few fuzzy memories but remember there was some weird anti-drug video (meth?) where they had a really bizarre and cool alien sounding synthesizer that was supposed to have a dramatic / disorienting / scary effect but really sounded cool. This was 2 presidents after Reagan so I’m sure the propaganda was refined throughout the years haha.
How To Get Black Background, Even With A White Wall !!
I don’t have the space for umbrella / reverse umbrellas but this is another great video. I do have a remote speedlight flash with the mylar soft-light diffuser that came with it and that does help control the light a bit resulting in the dark background shots. I’m sure a reverse umbrella would help soften the shadows a bit though and be a better choice / addition.
Strain : Sunshine Daydream x gogi og 2
Method Smoked : Bong/ Joint
APPEARANCE-
Smell- pine earthy mossy with hints of rubber and chemical has improved substantially with a bit of cure time
TASTE-
Pine and earth heavy with a chemical backend super tasty
Harsh/smoothness : (1-10, 1 being extremely harsh and 10 being extremely smooth) - 7.5
Effects- effects really shine on this pheno very cerebral head rush that hits as soon as you exhale find it has some pain relief qualities as I find it really relaxes my muscles and puts me in a real chill relaxing state of mind,works great for my shoulder pain can be a bit dreamy with larger doses
Grown under hlg 600r 20 gallon organic living soil 5th cycle this pheno did throw anthers late in flower but haven’t found a seed yet I believe these to be sterile
Profile : 60-40 indica dominant
Potency : (1-10, 1 being extremely weak and 10 being extremely potent) 7
Duration : (approx length of buzz, from first hit) hour and a half or two hours
Use : In smaller doses great all day smoke isn’t too sedative to not get shit done but heavy doses can get a bit sluggish
Munchies? : yes/no
Jesus Christ, I didn’t realize you were that much younger than me haha. They were still doing DARE during the Clinton years? Really? That’s nuts…
Yeah, it’s weird how they got people who knew nothing about drugs to preach about why you shouldn’t do drugs. And those people somehow made doing drugs sound even more awesome than you already suspected they were.
I mean, I watched that old-school Scared Straight thing where they sent a group of “juvenile delinquents” to a prison and the inmates were, like, screaming at these kids and talking about how they’d be the first person to be raped in the shower and shit when I was ten and I was like,”I so don’t wanna go to prison. Ever.”
But to have some trophy wife teaching us “DARE” after lunch, when I knew her kid (who was a total pussy, btw) and knew her and knew where they lived (two blocks down the street from me), I was just like,”Pssshhhh… Whatever. Bring it on. I want all those drugs…” haha.
And just as an aside, back then they showed Scared Straight on fucking regular tv, like on CBS or something, that’s how I saw it. We didn’t have cable, my mom refused to pay for it. For real, if you’ve never seen that shit, check it out, it’s actually pretty funny now. But I still can’t get over the fact that they showed that on free tv during prime time.
The good ol’ days… Back when they’d freely broadcast shit about prison rape and your mom didn’t even think twice about,”Should my ten-year-old be watching this…?” haha.
Ya I pretty much have a lifelong relationship with the devils lettuce… haha. Do they still do DARE? I assume the program ended as it was completely ineffective. All they did was generate mistrust in authorities which may have been a good thing.
That sounds better than how we had it. Ours was basically a gym/health teacher with a local officer there to reinforce the propaganda. I remember that officer had a car that he should not have been able to afford which makes you wonder.
I read a lot of erowid in the late 90s and I think that was a more balanced and an honest source of knowledge on drugs, at least more than anything that was around at the time. The Datura trip reports were always funny to read. Always think of the bizarre trip reports whenever I see a Datura plant.
Never heard of that, but I just checked out the first testimonial or whatever haha. Maybe I’ll read some more later. My drug education was mostly reading every Hunter Thompson book I could get my hands on when I was 13; I thought Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was a true story haha, which I guess is a testament to HST’s writing. I’m certain that’s one of the reasons why I’ve never worried about combining like eight drugs at once.
That definitely sounds worse than having some trophy wife teach DARE to us haha.
I’m certain they do not. I mean, I thought that shit ended after Reagan, pretty shocking to learn that they were still doing it in the 90’s.
Oh what? I’ve spent countless hours reading stuff on erowid since the 90s. It’s not just trip reports, there’s a ton of info on all the entheogens and drugs and such.
Ya I think I was mostly reading that stuff prior to the experience reports. Looking at it again there were pros , neutral, and cons of various substances which at least was a better starting point for making a decision.
This is all from a pre-youtube, pre-shroomery era of the internet and was an extremely valuable source of info for the time. Glad to see it’s still around.
Seeing all this talk makes me pine for the golden days. Does anyone have fond memories of reading Carlos Castaneda’s psychonaut swan song ‘The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge’? That book led me to become quite familiar with Datura as a plant and its sacred use as a medicine. Its funny to think I wanted to believe in those stories so badly then, I could have seriously harmed myself or others, luckily we were safe each time. Although I still grow Datura and other trumpet flowers to this day.
Ahh and yes Erowid this brings yet another memory. Being forced to go into a drug treatment program as a minor. Wanting to advocate for harm reduction and spreading the “truth” put me into hot water quickly with management and more often than not they separated me from the group, which meant me reading a book locked in a room.
I took it upon myself to start rifling through a shelf of books in the employee area one of these days and lo and behold! What did I find? Binder after binder with a near complete Erowid website archive printed out. When confronted as to why it was needed, the employee berated me and gave no answer. The fledgling ethnobotanist in me was so confused. I would like to think they enjoyed living vicariously through the trip reports in their down time
Also isnt it great that Erowid still looks like its from 1998?
I read a few of Castaneda’s books in the early 00s, possibly discovered via shroomery. Don’t really remember much of the books though and was pretty hard to follow for me. I remember them always making tortillas and something about the crack between the worlds or whatever.
I’ve already heard of the unappealing tales of Datura from both Erowid and Terence Mckenna at that point so I definitely had no real desire to try it. Was it just a mild deliriant how you used it?
I remember my exposure to “legal drugs” like Salvia Divinorum was by reading erowid as well. Shame those idiots on YT messed it up and became a rallying cry to criminalize more substances. I never had the nerve to try it but I liked having the option.
Yeah I’m still sad about the salvia criminalization. I grow that one myself and she will take you places whether you want to or not. Seen all kinds of stuff on that. It’s not social or “fun” though. Definitely more spiritual/be prepared to see some shit.
The writing was on the wall when they started doing things like recording themselves smoking extract while driving, swimming and all other sorts of bizarre circumstances sadly.
You know what’s cool about those “brighter” shots? I didn’t even really notice how purple the stems were until I saw the above pics, even scrolled up to the last few rounds of photos just to check it out and, yeah, you can kind of see it in the pics with the black background, but it’s reallllyyyyy noticeable with the lighter one.
Ya I like both styles for sure. I think trichomes on the edge/border of the buds stand out a bit more with the contrast of a black background. The middle ground between bright / dark in the past shots seems pretty nice to me as well. Jealous of those of you who can do outdoor shots!
Here are a few various seedlings. Some that aren’t pictured are pretty stunted, only got pictures of acceptable plants at the moment. Had an emergency maintenance situation that required the plants get moved and neglected for about a week. May replace some of them at some point.
