Quetstion for folks with photograph skills
4I need to take a photo of an art piece for jury consideration for a competition for art made from recycled materials (trash to treasure kind of thing). But it has an unremovable glass front, and I can’t find a way to take the photo without a lot of reflection. Is there some trick to this?
Sunlight
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Sorry about the typo in the subject. Haste maketh waste.
Indoor light
Try using an available light setting (thus no flash - but beware about what light is there as you can get a yellow cast from indoor lighting, etc. If outdoors make sure it is in the shade so no reflections and/or if you have time wait for an overcast day). My not very good camera has a “through the glass” setting which tends to cut down a bit on reflection. Then use an editing program to tinker with it until it looks (color wise) like the original.
Oh also instead of propping it up, try laying it on the floor and standing on a ladder to take the photo - that might change some of the shadows to something more acceptable to you.
@Kidsandliz Thanks. I’m not using flash, that is available light. It’s freestanding, but I could lay it down.
polarized filter.
@PantHeist Oh yeah. I forgot about that. That is a really, really good idea and probably the place to start - however those can make everything change color just a tiny bit so there still may be the need to slightly adjust that after the photo is taken.
@Kidsandliz @PantHeist @chienfou @mikibell @speediedelivery @cranky1950 @duodec @thismyusername @chienfou @jqubed whew, hope I got everybody. Just wanted to let you all know that I was selected by the jury for the show. Over 75% of the applicants were turned down, so that’s cool. The show travels, it will be in El Paso, Texas; Las Cruces, N.M., and Cuidad Juarez, Mexico. It’s my understanding there will be a reception with Chelsea Clinton in attendance. The final winners will get a meet and greet with Clinton. My piece is one of 115, so I have no expectation of winning, but it’s cool to be in this international art show. It’s my second mainstream international show, my 7th including Sci Fi con shows.
@moondrake Congratulations!
@moondrake That is wonderful!
@moondrake congrats!
I am flying to ElPaso the 15th and visiting family in NM for Easter. If it is open my Mom would be interested in browsing. She is involved with fiber craft stuff and loves all kinds of handmade creations.
@speediedelivery I’d love to meet you guys for lunch or something. How does one communicate without giving out personal info to the whole world? We don’t have IM here do we?
The Metamorphosis show opens the 20th at the El Paso International Museum of Art.
http://www.whatsuppub.com/calendar/event_208f45ae-1b26-11e7-a920-a7939f89889d.html
@moondrake I have my username here at gmail.
@speediedelivery great!
@moondrake Congratulations! Can we see the picture you ultimately submitted?
@jqubed I actually never did get any good ones, I tried the lightbox with a black curtain behind me, but it was just as bad. I threw myself on the mercy of the judges in my submission email as they were looking at the art and not the photography. I have to turn it in first thing tomorrow morning before I go to jury duty. I tried to open the case this morning to clean out the dust and visible dried glue but that sucker is really on there so I decided to leave it alone rather than risk breaking it. Looks like I get to mingle with Chelsea Clinton after all, as she’ll be at the artists’ reception two weeks from today.
These are the three I sent.
@moondrake If the glass is on so solidly how is dust getting in?
The ideal thing to use is a polarizing filter on a DSLR or similar camera. You can also try shooting through your sunglasses lens if you have polarized sunglasses. Rotate the lens relative to the camera until the most glare possible is eliminated.
Nest best would be to try to get the piece facing a solid colored wall and use available light and a tripod/time release so you are not in the picture. You can also tip the frame slightly to get a better/lesser reflected pattern.
@chienfou Ooops, same idea posted while I was typing…
@chienfou won’t a white piece of paper in front of the flash also help to defuse the light? I recall this from a dusty part of my brain, but can’t remember why I did this…
@mikibell true, that will possibly help as well. Not using a flash would still be the ideal.
@chienfou I was not using flash in the photos. In the second one I’d turned on a lamp to provide some direct light.
I had good luck putting the lens right on the glass in a zoo photo I took.
@speediedelivery Looks like for this you wouldn’t get the whole piece unless you used a lens that distorted the picture if you did that
You need to black out the window with foil or heavy blanket, then use indirect lighting the source of which is not in the sight lines of the glass and flood the room with light, it’ll be pretty diffuse and flat which is what you want. set the camera on a tripod or stable surface and press the shutter. The light level given that you don’t have pro lights available will probably be pretty low so you be taking a pretty long exposure for hand holding. make sure all the light sources are the same approximate color temp and you can filter out any color bias with photoshop.
I usta do one hour exposures with available light, anything you do will not approach that
@cranky1950 You can also take the pix at night and probably not have to blackout the window. Also if youve got a few bucks you can get a few cheap clip lights and the equivalent of 150watt par flood lights from home despot. and bounce the light off the walls and ceiling
If you’re a maker, make a shadow box stick frame with the large end able to just fit outside the object you want to picture, and the small end large enough for the camera or lens. Think pyramid with the tip cut off for the camera, height set for a distance where the camera can see the entire object. Cover the sides with panels of white tissue or parchment or other uniform thin white material. Essentially its a custom studio box like you can use to get quality pics of small items to sell on ebay. Shine lights (from a distance so you don’t get a bright spot) onto each panel, adjust position to evenly light the object.
If not try hanging a large black sheet/blanket or other flat/matte black nonreflective material behind the camera to block all the alternate direct light sources that are reflecting in the object’s glass. Only the blanket’s reflection should be “visible” on the object glass from the POV of the camera lens. Ambient lighting from around the blanket sufficient to light the object for the picture. If necessary shroud the camera/tripod as much as possible too in black cloth, but with no direct light source on the camera to reflect back hopefully it will be a minimal issue.
Great stuff above (black blanket is my goto when I can move it around) but this might help:
(I nabbed the pics from https://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/6625/how-do-you-photograph-artwork-in-a-glass-picture-frame )
Thanks everyone!
How did it turn out finally?
@chienfou I’m going to take another run at it this afternoon. I actually have a light box kit that I bought for my jewelry, I hadn’t thought about using it for this till reading people’s comments. I’m not sure it will fit, but I’m going to set it up and give it a try. I’ve been delaying because I’ve been looking for my good camera’s lost charger, still no luck finding it. But I can use the camera on my Pixel, it’s doubtless better than the two waterproof cameras I have. I’ll let you know, thanks for asking.
@moondrake If you have a camera shop nearby or can wait a day or two for the internet to ship you something, you can surely get a generic charger for your camera.
@jqubed If I don’t find it I’ll hit up Prime for it next month. It’s an old Canon G11, as venerable as point and shoots get. I’m on a spending moratorium at the moment, vacation expenses and emergency veterinary costs have maxed out my everyday card and I’m trying to avoid the temptation to use one of my emergency cards for everyday expenses.
@moondrake Good plan…and remarkably rare will-power. Congrats!
@moondrake how did your charity auction go???
@mikibell The jewelry one? I’m not sure when they are judging that. I’ve gotten a bit out of touch with the trip and the new dogs. But here are a couple of photos of the piece I submitted. I made the ceramic butterflies in my clay class and the bronze ones in my metals class and put a green patina on them. The big millifiori beads are the ones that were given to each artist. We each used a matching set of beads in our pieces. It’s named Spring.
@moondrake they are beautiful!
Congrats on your Clinton show too!!