Ready for My Close Up
Who’da thunk it would take this much technical gear to make one of my furniture Projects look presentable? … kidding, JUST KIDDING! But seriously, while cellphone pics in a well-lit foyer might have been good enough for my prototype pieces, to suitably represent Projects for sale I would need to up my game. Here’s why …
The human eye & brain are remarkable organs. Working together to process incoming light they can detect all nuances of color, texture, shape and chatoyance (there’s that word again). Beyond accurate observation, they can give the perception of depth and even evoke emotions. Powerful. Often the trick is to give them something to look at that does not limit their potential - especially when the palette is an electronically generated 2D image (wink).
Now, I don’t know much about photography as a craft, but I do reckon that a well-lit, true-color representation of my Projects would be a good way to market them from a website. With that as the goal, and consciously stopping short of the magazine-quality renderings seen on real portfolio sites, I set out to see what I could do. There is a lot to read on this subject from pioneers who settled the ebay and Etsy frontiers, but I chose not to study those accounts in any detail. I thought there might be something to gain by figuring things out myself - plus consulting with my friend, Alex, who knows. And besides, I have two Art Directors (sons) “on staff” who draw the pictures for my site and never let me get too far adrift. I just needed some new tools. To that end, I purchased a white 10x12 ft muslin backdrop with stand and a couple of soft box lights to add to my Canon SLR camera, LED light and tripods ($180 in extra gear). The bigger challenge was real estate. Once these things accumulate you need to set them all up - and with enough space to focus a 55mm lens. That meant commandeering the living room. Now, I had ordered my equipment during the 2020 Holiday shopping & shipping season so when it finally arrived in early January I was anxious to try it all out and post a Project for sale. Damn the backdrop ironing, full steam ahead!
All went well on the maiden voyage. Experimenting with the lighting was actually fun, as digital photography provides instantaneous hypothesis testing, and the Sumo boys were reasonably patient with all of the futzing. It took the better part of a morning to get my half dozen poses shot and the rigging dismantled. The pics looked good on the camera, but when posted to the website I found the fabric folds were too distracting to tolerate. I asked an Art Director to kindly “get rid of those” and he did something on his computer to make that happen. Looks okay, I’d say. I do miss the under-piece shadows, though, as I feel they impart a beneficial realism. They’ll be back next time after I iron the mainsail.
Well that’s my tale and remember, … I was JUST KIDDING!
