>I'm still thinking/planning about photography of my work. I mentioned my booth setup here before and I didn't get too good of a response:
My background right now is a large peice of 1/8 milky colored plexi-glass draped over a wood frame, and this seems to give weird effect with the plexi-glass almost glowing with the lights, and it's hard to get the right shadows to keep the peice from looking like it's floating - Should I go ahead and just by a photographers graduated background - what do I need here: black to white, gray, all white - all three? Nothing? A proffesional?
White plexiglass doesn't make athe best background unless you want to backlight something. There are 3 or 4 ways to get a graduated background. One is too use a seamess paper background and simply drape the bacground far enough away to so that it gets dark naturally. The light gets darker as it gets further from the lamp.
The second way is to somehow shade the background. You can use carboard or anything that will block the light. Place this cardboard(photographers call this a Gobo) between the light and background to cast a shodow. You may have to shread the edge so your Gobo doesn't leave a hard edge shadow.
If your lights are in a reflector you may be able to aim them so they hit the subject but not the background. This can sometimes be difficult and to achieve this the light may be aimed forward which could hit the camera lens and cause flair. A good lens hood may work or you can place a Gobo between the light and camera to shade the camera.
For small photo booths it's hard to beat a graduated background. They look professional and work really well. www.porters.com has them. The only downside is that the surface is fragile. It scratches really easily and the scratches show. If you never slide or rotate your work on the background and your really careful when rolling and unrolling they will last a pretty good while.
I've made a few with different amounts of success. I used the backside of vinyl(sp? it's too early) flooring and spray painted it primer gray. Then I started at one end and sprayed it flat black feathering it so that the bottom 1/3 was still gray. This looks good if your careful with the spray. However if you have to shoot down on something vs horizontal, you can see the splatter left by the spray can. Still from a low angle like you would normally shoot vases, hollow vessels,etc it looks really good.
All my stuff is packed in boxes from the move so I can't post a photo but if you'll e-mail me I have a version of my article on outdoor shooting that I can send you that shows this background.
Ooops just forgot my e-mail is down due to this move. Hopefully I will get it working today or tomorrow. I'll try to post something when I get the e-mail back up.
>David- here is the basic set-up I use for most of my turning shoots as well as the demos I teach for other turners who want to improve their photos. Q/H 500w work lights are more repeatable and controllable than most other sources,and the graduated backgrounds are overworked and expensive. I often use a white vinyl roll-up window shade as in this photo, and by extending it out the back and out of the light you can simulate a gradient.
>My photo setup consists of a piece of 4x8 plywood set short end to the wall. I hung a 50" wide roll of photo paper (costs less than $25 at a photo shop). The long table gives the paper a gradual curve up to the wall which gives a nicer gradient. My lighting consists of two clamp lights from Home Depot with 500 watt bulbs from the camera store. I made 20" x 40" softboxes from foamboard and some white nylon (Staples and Joann Fabric). One softbox is placed by the camera as a diffuse fill. Another is off to the side, as close to the object as I can get without getting into the frame. The closer the softbox, the more diffuse the light. You could also hang some white diffusing cloth as a curtain around the object rather than building the lightboxes--though they give a bit more control. I also found that clipping a smaller 250 watt to the ceiling lights the paper for more even tone and also gives a little backlight "sparkle" to the object. Using tungsten photofloods gives good results with my digital camera, also with tungsten slide film in my SLR. I also cut the gloss on the pieces with 0000 steel wool to reduce reflections.
>The problem with photofloods is the short life expectancy(average about 3 hrs.) and they are gradually changing color as they burn- I would recommend the Q/H work lights as a better light source and investment.
