Toaster

I was making some toasts one evening and when I looked at the toaster, the glowing elements intrigued me. So I closed the lights to see how it would look. The glow from the elements was cool but to make it look less boring I thought a reflection would help. Here's my setup:

 

At first, I shot straight at the toaster but it looked a little boring. By shooting in a slight angle, it makes it more interesting. You can see the elements better and also you don't see the bottom of the inside of the toaster.

I placed a flash with an umbrella because, without it, it was too harsh. I placed some gels to get a blue-green color. I tried to control it so I would only get a band of light.

This was shot with my Fujifilm X-T3 + Rokinon 50mm 1.2. This is out of camera raw with Lightroom presets (Adobe Color):

I bumped the exposure by almost half a stop, decrease the whites, and bumped the clarity. There's a couple of local adjustments to get more details in the darker regions. There's a ton a spot removal to get annoying black spots from the dirty toaster. The most impacted work was in the HSL tab with hues and luminance.

50mm 13sec F/8 ISO 160

Who takes a picture of a toaster? If you stop yourself with those thoughts, then I'm afraid you'll lose inspiration rather quickly. Everyone's idea of a photograph is something that should blow you away visually. Think National Geographic for example or any big landscape photographers.

If you're an amateur, you're doing this because it's fun, you like the challenge and the creativity aspect of it. You're shooting to enjoy yourself, not to impress others. If you don't take a shot because you don't think it will be impressive for others, you're greatly limiting yourself.