McLean Museum & Art Gallery - Artist in Residence Journal
Archive 3
- 20 December 2007
- To day is the first day of practical work at the Museum. The plan is to experiment with photographing various objects of differing size, colour, texture, and finish under a variety of lighting set-ups to establish the best way to capture images of the objects from the Museum collections.
- Two problems to be resolved are how best to photograph small objects and those with a reflective surface. The other issue to be addressed is to establish the most efficient work flow for capturing and processing the large numbers of images that I expect to take. No doubt this will take some time to establish.
- 21 December 2007
- The first work day at the Museum went very well indeed. The workroom at the Museum had previously been identified as a good location to use as a studio and was indeed very successful. Considering it is such a busy work space for the Museum it is kept very well organised by the Museum staff and there was plenty of room for me to try various lighting set-ups.
- The curator had looked out some Egyptian pieces for me to experiment with and during the session produced objects with varying surfaces for me to try. I have to confess that I was tempted into photographing objects not on the days capture list and in future I will have to be more focussed than this. However I should be able to reach some preliminary conclusions on how best to tackle photographing the objects from the ninety two images I took whether I strayed from my original capture list or not!
- 22 December 2007
- The first set of images have now been reviewed and preliminary findings indicate that the images with the most detail and minimal or no reflections were obtained with a lighting tent – no surprises there!! This method involves placing the object in a custom made photographic light tent which enables you to create your own portable, self-contained, table top lighting studio.
- The light tent is a semi-rigid cube made from photographic grade white nylon fabric which diffuses the external light source thereby softening shadows and reducing glare. This makes it ideal for photographing shiny or reflective objects. I have yet to establish if additional lighting in the work room will be required to perfect this set up.
- The light tent is supplied with a detachable front cover incorporating a slit for the camera lens, particularly useful when photographing highly reflective objects such as silver and glass. Four background cloths to cover the back and floor of the light tent are included and are positioned by Velcro fasteners. These provide a choice of non-reflective 'infinity backdrop' colours for the objects. A spring wire supporting frame sewn into the light tent fabric allows the pop-up tent to be folded flat within its carrying bag for easy storage. This is the most difficult part of the whole operation and today I failed to perform the correct gymnastics with the cube to get it back into its bag. I therefore had to walk through the Museum carrying the light tent much to the amusement of the staff!
