Taking Quailty pictures of your work pt. 2

    I thought it may be beneficial for some of you to see how I actually set up to take the pictures for my Website. All you need are three lights, a backdrop, a camera and tripod. 

   The first light is called the key light, it rakes across the piece at about a 45 degree angle to the camera and sets closest to the piece. The next is called a fill light, it rakes across on the opposite side again at a 45 degree angle. So it doesn't overpower the key light, it gets moved back and forms a wider light cast. The last light is called the back light. It does just what it states, it lights from the back, (notice it's just a cheap clip on light stuck on a dolly).



This is pretty easy to do and you can do it all with cheap incandescent clamp on lights. If you want to learn more, YouTube has several videos on the subject and they make pretty good sense. That's where I went to learn a bit more.

  

Notice the shadow

 

Shadow is gone

     All I do is roll out the back drop, set my piece of furniture on, and start playing with shadows or rather try to make them disappear. If you can get it to look like the piece is floating your doing it right. It's probably easier to do on a white backdrop or lighter color but when I originally took my pieces to the photographers, all she had was a black backdrop, and I wanted my website to be the same on future inclusions so I had to get the black one. 

   

    Now once the lights look good to you,  start snapping photos without the flash on and check each picture to see if it's appealing to your eye. If you see hard shadows adjust the lights till it's gone or in a little less visual position. It takes some finagling but it's not difficult. You just need a bit of patience, and you can get really pretty decent photos for next to nothing, maybe $200 or so. Once you get it set up, you can do all your own pictures, whether for a website or to send in to a magazine for awards, contests, articles etc. I have had a few pieces in a couple different home magazines and all but one I took myself.

   

     Magazines usually don't want any distraction material such a teddy bear in a chair or just a piece placed next to a wall where trim and wall paint pull the eye away from the piece.  That's why a back drop works great. All your focus is on the piece your photographing and not the distributive elements. Plus it looks so mush more professional without distractions. Your pictures will take on a higher quality and be more visually stimulating to potential customers, a plus if you are trying to sell your wares.  

While this picture isn't horrible, it's still has too many distractions. The light socket for one thing, but the contrast from the wall color and the trim plus the floor, are very eye catching and takes the viewers focus from the actual piece your trying to draw attention to.

This has better visual focus and keeps the eye looking at the chair instead of a disruptive background.

Taking Quality photos of your work pt. 1

After spending time and money to have my furniture photographed by a professional photographer, I decided I'd give it a try myself. I had went to the photographer a few times, and she did an outstanding job, but it was such a chore to drag 4-6 chairs and large cabinets to her studio to have it all done. I saw the background she used and the lighting and honestly it didn't look all that hard to try on my own.                                                                                                  

First I bought a back drop which is really just a 9' wide x 36' long roll of heavy paper on a cardboard tube at the local camera shop, they come in several colors, I choose black, cost $40. Then I bought a couple cheap lights off Ebay that came with the umbrellas, another $40 for the pair. I already had a inexpensive Kodak digital camera that takes a 12 mega pixel photo, around $120 new. I was pretty well set other than a tripod that was $25 at "Wally World".  So for the cost of a couple trips to the photographers studio I had what works just about as well and I can do it at home, in the shop where the furniture already is. Now to see if it would work.

    I have never really done any kind of picture taking except for the basic stuff, family photos, kids as they grow up and the like. When your trying to get good quality photos of your work for a magazine or just to put on a web site, lighting is key. At first I had to play with lights for a couple hours checking where the shadows were and if there was any glare, etc. After some monkeying around and adjusting the light angles, it's really not to hard to get pretty nice photos. The photo of the Jefferson Swivel and the Slant lid Secretary on the opening pages of this blog is one of the first I did. You can see how well it turned out. Another I did recently is the Shaker Table above. While I have a shadow behind the table somewhat, it still turned out pretty clear.  

    I now have a place in my shop were I can pull the backdrop down tape it to the floor, set my piece on it and within an hour or less get several photos at different angles that look, in my opinion, almost as good as the pros did without spending the time loading, unloading, setting up, photographing, loading back up, and waiting a week or so to get the photos plus a $100 an hour fee. I wouldn't call myself a photographer by any means, but I do call myself a do-it-yourself cheap skate.

Early American Life Magazine 2011

I recently found out I was chosen for the 2011 Top 200 Directory of American Craftsmen by Early American Life Magazine. I was chosen in 2010 for Windsor Chairs alone and this year, in the Painted and Formal Furniture as well as Windsor Chair categories again. I am also going to have my Thomas Jefferson Swivel Windsor shown in the Directory issue in August. I am so excited about that, the fine folks at EAL were kind enough to ask me and I couldn't be happier. The Directory is in it's 26th year and it is a honor to be accepted. Out of the no telling how many people they have send in work, only 200 get chosen and that's not only furniture, that includes Basket Makers, Needle Work, Pottery, Paintings, just to name a few. You can check out more by going to http://www.ealonline.com/ be sure to look for a copy on newsstands in August and support local artisans in your area.