Day 2 with the pepper
I think I came closer today. There was more natural light coming in from outside so I was able to close the f stop farther and still take a 30 sec shot. I don't have a remote for my bulb timer so right now it requires that I hold the button down the entire length of the shot. :( I did 2 slightly different versions of the same shot. I'll see if they still look different when they are loaded on the web. The differences should be subtle. Also I think I need to by a better pepper - there are dry spots in this one and it's really obvious in close-up photography. While I am using photoshop to edit the photos I don't want to do whole-pepper spot removal. At least not yet.
Overall I think the second one is a little flatter. Too many midtones, not enough blacks in the pepper itself.