Small item photography
As part of this year I had planned on trying to complete four projects, two of those being “Tools” and “Hubcaps”. I quickly realized that in this economy where I can barely afford an omelette I definitely cannot afford 50 antique hubcaps and 50 different well-used tools. So I stepped back and looked at what I was hoping to accomplish with these projects and came to the realization that what I wanted was; 1) to get better at “studio” type photography and 2) create enough good images to make a book and/or produce a line of platinum palladium prints.
In order to accomplish those goals, I started over with the theme of “well-loved things”. The idea will be to take portraits of 50 (or more) well-loved things. The first three images are presented here. I’m not super happy with two of the images (you can ponder which two), so I will be retaking them in the near future.
I am also learning more about my setup, shown below, and how it works in my environment. The most immediate things are that dust is the enemy and that “low-reflective” does not mean “non-reflective”. My rig has a piece of “low-reflective” glass that I need to make sure and dust before each photo and I need to be aware of reflections one the glass.
As you can see, I have a limited amount of space for my, admittedly, amateur rig. In these photos I have setup to photo a 1960s transistor radio on a black background. I have other backgrounds and I’m not sure black is the right one for this item. Also, a straight above shot might not be the best angle either.
This is where I am right now. As the year goes on, I hope to get better and to get closer to a group of photos that I can turn in to a book and prints of some sort.
