Photographs

[tapit123]

I've been really blown away by the wonderful work I've seen posted here. Not only are the pieces amazing, but the images are as well.

A question. Who in the history of photography has done the best work documenting and/or interpreting sculpture with the camera? I saw some haunting stuff by Pierre Jahan done in Paris in 1940, and have seen random other works as well, but I'd love to have some suggestions as to other photographs to study.

Thanks ahead of time...

Also, filming/photographing ice sculpture is a BEAR!!! Without a huge lighting setup and permits to use it, what's the best approach to capturing ice work?

Patti

[phuzman]

Hi,
Being a former glassblower, I had to take lots of jury pics of my work and I think it may be similar to ice, by a photographer's standards. Here's the little I know:
1. Use a gradiant background. This is a background of neutral color (I use a piece of grey photography paper) and have it curved. Then light one area so that it goes from light to dark gradually. It can be front to back, back to front, left to right, etc. This will make your piece seem to float.
2. Use filtered light. Getting hot spots out of ice (or glass) is extremely difficult for a professional, let alone a novice, so don't expect to, but if you filter your light source it will cut down on a lot of them. I used wax paper. I've even had friends of mine get great reslults with paper towels.
3. Have multiple sources of light. This will cut down on the obvious shadows. Experiment with location for each piece.
4. NO FLASH! It's way too harsh and will show all flaws in a piece, if any.
I'll post more if I can remember. It's been a while since I needed to take a jury pic, so I may have forgotton something.
Below is an old example that I had on my computer. I'll see if I have a better one, but at least you can see the background.

[phuzman]

Here's a link to a post by a very well-known glassblower name Robert Mikelsen on how to take pictures of glass. It gets a little involved, but I got pretty good results after just reading it.
http://p211.ezboard.com/fartglasspipemakersfrm25.showMessage?topicID=6.top ic

[Araich]

As a friendly counterpoint, I have come to like a horizon line instead of a faded/gradient background.

[phuzman]

Could you explain a "horizon line"? I have no idea what it is, but if it's easier than a gradiant background, I'd love to try it.

[Araich]

Just a line between the floor and wall in the background. Like this:

[fused]

The horizon line in your photographs is a nice feature, do you shoot them yourself? I have a habit of using that element in drawings of sculpture and never considered doing it with photos.

Many years ago a friend had a small steel sculpture in a museum, the eight inch tall piece was on a pedistal that matched the neutral wall color. When he took pictures the square top of the pedistal lined up with the floor boards of the walls and all the images he took made the work look eight feet tall. When he showed slides people would ask about it's scale and be surprised that is was a small piece.

[phuzman]

That does look nice. I like the piece a lot, too.