Black background v. white background

One orange, white tulips, a black background, a white 'cube' light tent. These are the results:

http://www.photoconnect.net/blog_photos/BWstilllife/

These are jpegs produced direct from the RAW file - Capture One software allowing the immediate production of images on a webpage. You can probably guess where the crops were made for submission to Alamy.

For those interest in the white background technique, I used a nice cheap 90cm light cube thta I bought off eBay. The back faced the window light and I set manual exposure to get this white. (As the evening wore on I should have adjusted but never mind.)

One of my Pentax flashguns shot through a brolly above and just to the right of the cube (nice diffuse light ensured there). The other (wirelessly linked to the first) shot off the top of the camera but bounced of the wall or ceiling. The solo orange shows the ever so slight shadow cast - much better than no shadow if you ask me which would leave a very arfificial feel.

The camera was set on a tripod because of the low shutter speed. I used PTTL flash and the Pentax system seemed to work very well to get the exposure right without me having to think too hard about it.

Now to come up with some new ideas on what to shoot. The light cube seems huge so I am not restricted to small objects but there is no way I'm going to risk the cat's claws in there.....