Busy Busy Busy!

New Styles.... So busy.... Color Color Color! No time for words......

Photography Studio Set up

I while back I posted several articles on my trials and tribulations on Photography. It has taken me a long time to get to were I feel that I take reasonably good pictures of my goods. I never got to actually showing you what my set up looks like (see above). It isn't pretty as it is set up in the back garage. I have also learned since this picture was taken- Don't have natural light streaming in if you have bulb lighting. I actually use Trumpet Daylight bulbs now(to the right). I use these bulbs as they remain cool. I used to used regular photography bulbs but after being turned on for any hour they got HOT! Burn you hot! To mix the color of natural light with daylight bulbs it sometimes give me a pink cast. I fought it for a long time. YUCK! So I now close the blind and just use the bulbs and even have the same type of bulb in each light. My camera goes on a tripod in front of the tent. I have also added an additional light on top of the tent as sometimes at night it is too dark. Having 3 kids and working at home I do not have the luxury of taking pictures outside in the perfect nature light. I have also learned the hard way that if you adjust you exposure on your camera I have sometimes found it better to go a bit darker than overexposed which is harder to correct in editing. Also harsher light can mess with the color even when you use white balance. When you look in the picture above showing my setup you will see the piece of travertine I bought to shoot on. If I only knew...It has an annoying pink sometimes yellow undertone. Look for this kind of thing in your backdrop. I purchased a tan velvet paper once that had a weird red undertone when photographed. Not good. I wish I had gone grayer in tone in my stone. But I did find a gray rock that I can use as a prop that helps balance the color. I spend more time editing to get rid of the pink then I should have to. It has helped to cut out the natural light. Here are 2 pictures right out of my camera unedited. One on the more yellow rock that sometimes give pink undertones and the same earrings on the gray rock. They were taken during the same photo session, same light.
But the best part of my photography is that I finally took the plunge and bought a nice camera that I LOVE. I got a Canon Rebel XT. LOVE LOVE LOVE it! I use the white balance on my camera but sometimes I just put it on the dummy settings and get good shots without messing with it. I pretty much always take numerous pics of the same earrings in the same setting but adjust the white balance and exposure 2 or 3 times. Then I know I got the shot. Plus I may jiggle even with the tripod. Or if I use auto focus it may focus on the rock not the piece. I learned in my last session no matter how much you focus your camera you will never get the shot in focus if you do not have your glasses on. HA! I have a hard drive that is full of 3/4 bad shots 1/8 good shots and 1/8 am happy with shots after editing.

So proud to show off.....

I have been working on these little buggers for months. I took the pictures and for some reason just did not want to show them off. I worked so hard on them to get them right I just wanted to keep them to myself. But now is the time to show them off. Push them out of the nest you might say. It is a marriage of my two loves: Enameling and Miniatures. I have been a miniaturist for years. When I started to make jewelry and then enameling I have been thinking about these little houses for a while. I finally had a "free" evening...put aside everything else and just started to figure it out. First making then little house out of card stock. Then out of copper. AL LOT of crooked little houses later and I managed to make one. Then I thought I better see if I could actually do it again...more crooked houses....and I managed to get 4 more. The bodies are made of copper, windows cut, roof and door cut and soldered on. I choose to solder them even though it took extra time because I did not want them to fall apart in the kiln. Things also expand and contract when they are heated and cool in the kiln so cracks could form. You can find them on ArtFire: Teka and Zoe.