WarmGlass.com

Trying to get serious about photography again, have borrowed a camera because the last one I bought for this purpose is outdated since slides are no longer required. This image is a tester for smaller work but am undecided how I should set up for a wider piece which has a lot of white at the base and various colours along the width. Width is fairly wide at 1900mm. I was thinking along the lines of using scuffed vinyl floor covering or maybe a starched and ironed sheet, leaning towards a grey. All guidance and links will be greatly appreciated. peace, haydo

Sometimes a soft black that has a gradiating shade from darker at lower area to lighter at top ( just done with lighting the black in a controlled light box ) would be really lovely for a piece with white in it. A lot of times it is all about the lighting so you get no reflections from a flash. The above photos works nicely also but would love to see these pieces presented this way as well. Just for curiosity . I do not have a nice camera and set up with a light tent but it looks as if you do. Excellent and love this thread. Lovely pieces as well.
Leslie

I read today that Amazon has patented using white for a photo backdrop. Of course, I have no clue if this is actually true or not. You may have to switch to offwhite...

Bert Weiss wrote:I read today that Amazon has patented using white for a photo backdrop. Of course, I have no clue if this is actually true or not. You may have to switch to offwhite...

I also read that here: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.1808939
They claim they patented a specific process for it.

Like photographers haven't been using lighting to blow out a background for the last... 100 or so years.

Thanks, I'll be steering clear of using white. Only have to complete polishing here and there and I'll give it a go. Have a few days up my sleeve to work it out. I've looked at many images of glass and like how the graduation starts light at the bottom and very dark at background but will look at more to see how I like it reversed. So lucky to have a digital camera these days. One thing i read was to be mindful of dust particles peace, haydo

Haydo

I love the matte finish and everything else about these pieces. and the photography. The idea of patenting a white background is patently absurd...

Yeah I only went along with it to make myself look stupid. Anyway the grey sheet or for that matter any sheet is painful for this size work, youngest son gave it best shot at ironing it but decided to wash it then make it taught over the set up to take images. My wife finally got her way, she's been trying to convince me about visual merchandising by saying it looks wrong and needs three elements removed, certainly will help with fitting it into a booth for correct spacing around object. peace, haydo
edit- To my amazement, it looks way more balanced and pleasing to the eye. I'll have to take back the comment to her about if she wanted it that way she should go ahead and make her own.

Geez, I thought the Amazon patent was a joke.

I use fabrics for backgrounds a lot, and wrinkling is a big problem. But polar fleece doesn't show wrinkles! Depending on how you do it, the texture of the polar fleece may or may not show, and may or may not be a problem. So easy to store it without wrinkling.

Oh crap, Amazon is going to patent that.

Thanks for the tip Mark. My boss(snicker, I let her think that) reckons it would leave too much lint but gave me the tip of using bamboo cotton for future work. Took a couple of hundred images, varying light angles, speed and apertures. For many when the piece looked good was let down by wrinkles, but have managed to get my images. Both for main and close ups by using raw towards the end of session, no tweaking except for cropping. Really impressed when converted to Tiff format. Can't wait to get my own camera to see what is possible by tweaking. peace, haydo

Nice dragon's teeth! At TAFE we were shown a very simple setup for photographing 3D work. I can't find any photos I took this way right now but it simply involved spooling some white paper off a roll, arranging your subject on the paper on a flat surface, dropping one end of the paper out of sight off the front of the table, or whatever, and clipping the other end up higher than your subject to something out of shot, so it formed a backdrop with a gentle curve. Bouncing the light of the sculpture or the paper gave different effects. There, was that confusing? I know what I mean. Jen

I know what you are meaning Jen. Will be pulling down the booth tomorrow. Had to use all the width of cotton sheet just to get the framing right, the sheet gave me 2.4mtrs to work with plus three white sheets to form the tent. Already got my eye on a camera that will be excellent in low light and am looking forward to playing around with it in a much smaller set up. Already now I'm realising I should have spent more time exploring mirrors and shielding. peace, haydo