Chinese tea · one object, one shadow
One object, lit from both sides, on nothing
Thirty-four Chinese teas photographed as single objects on white, each with the same soft ellipse of shadow and the same small caption set far below it.
Chinese tea · one object, one shadow
Thirty-four Chinese teas photographed as single objects on white, each with the same soft ellipse of shadow and the same small caption set far below it.
3 teas · 3 categories
The white ground here is not a backdrop, it is the removal of one. With nothing else in the frame the eye has to spend its time on the leaf itself: the flat blade of a Longjing pick, the glassy fracture of pressed resin, the exact brown of a ripe bud. Chinese tea is graded by looking at dry leaf, and most tea photography buries that under cloth, steam and props. The single shadow is the only element that admits the object is physical and has weight. Captions are moved to the bottom and set small so reading happens after looking, not instead of it. It makes for slow shopping, which is the correct speed for something you are meant to inspect.