taking photos

My friend and his wife came over today for the photos of the scale necklace. It went ok, I think I got some good photos. I wasn't sure how it would go since I have never photographed a piece on a model before. One problem seemed to be using a fast enough shutter speed since even slight movement with a slow shutter speed will cause blur. I ended up shooting most of the photos at 1600 ISO, and then reduced some of the noise with Nik Software Dfine in Photoshop.

This was another situation where I realize how much I love digital photography. I can shoot as many photos as I want and immediately see how they are turning out. Today I ended up having to reshoot some after looking at them on the computer. If I was using film I would have to pay to have the film developed and then wait at least an hour before finding out the pics were unusable. The seam in my backdrop is visible in some of the photos, but it's not a problem. I can take it out in Photoshop with the healing brush. With film there's nothing I would be able to do about it. One has to be a better photographer to take good photos with film.

None of this is new to me, I have been shooting digital since 2005. But I was just thinking of how much more work it would be if I was using film, and I am so glad I don't have to use film. Film does have advantages, I believe 35mm can be printed bigger than photos from my 12 megapixel camera, medium format and large format can definitely be printed bigger. But I have never had a need for large prints.

I'll post the photos once I have taken the other photos of the piece.

tripods

A while ago I got a new tripod. I got Manfrotto 055XPROB legs and a Manfrotto 488RC0 ball head.

Up till now I had been using a cheap tripod from Walmart. Normally I don't cheap out with something like that and get the absolute cheapest one, but at the time I bought it (2003) I just wanted one to play around with. I had no intention of using it to photograph my work because I didn't know how to photograph my work.

I was getting tired of using a tripod that made me nervous cause it was so unstable. I had been thinking about getting a better tripod for years, but when ever I looked at them I was always overwhelmed by the selection of legs and heads. So finally I spent some time and figured out which looked best for me. If I would have known how much better a good brand name tripod was I would have gotten it years ago. There is such a difference between this one and my old one. This one is stable, it doesn't feel like it could easily be knocked over like my old one. And the head doesn't feel like it might drop my camera. It is also bigger, so I no longer have to do things like put my tripod on cinder blocks when I want to get my camera higher.





With the Manfrotto you can do fancy things like put the center column horizontal to photograph something directly from above. There is a hook near the center of the legs to hang a weight from to make it more stable.

photographing a stupid bronze vase

I photographed this piece yesterday. I made it in grad school in 2005. It's cast bronze, about 6.25" high. This was probably the most difficult piece I have ever photographed. This photo isn't that great, but it's the best I can do. I photographed it back when I first made it, but the pics were terrible. The problem is it is reflective and dark. Normally if you have something reflective, like polished silver, if you photograph it in a light tent, which is all white material, it's ok. The white reflections on silver look ok. But on a dark piece like this, light colored things reflected on it look terrible. The main problem I was having was the backdrop I was using, this big piece of paper that goes from white to black. The white and gray in the foreground were reflecting on the piece and making it difficult to see the patina. So after messing around with it for a while I decided to move it to a darker area on the back drop. I no longer had the reflections and the patina looked good, but its difficult to see the shape of the dark piece on the dark background. I gave up on photographing it and decided to try to work with what I had on Photoshop. I have limited Photoshop skills, just like I have limited photography skills, but I was sick of taking pictures. This photo is what I ended up with. Its dark, but it shows just how the patina really looks. If I really wanted a good photo the thing to do would be to send it to a professional photographer, but this piece really isn't worth it.

new glass for photography

A couple days ago I got a new piece of non-glare glass on which to photograph my work. My old glass, which was about 24" x 24", broke several months ago. Since most of my work is small I was able to use one of the broken pieces for a while, but it wasn't big enough for everything. I got the new glass cut to 17" x 20" so it fits inside my light tent.

Here is my first photo on the new glass, the piece I posted some process photos of Sept 10th.