Assignment 8 Still Life

I think this assignment was a lot easier after assignment 7 really helped prepare us for this assignment. At first I did not know what items to use, especially because the items are reflective of images and light. But I talked to Sophie and she said it was okay to have some light reflection, and even if I was reflected on the surface a little bit. I found the chalice on the side of the road—someone was throwing it out and I almost did not pick it up because I thought the words on it made it less valuable. But I brought it home to my boyfriend and he said it was a one-of-a-kind, and that it was an antique worth probably about $800. The physics professor from Trinity College was a real person and we looked him up. My boyfriend collects silver a bit and wants to get into selling collectibles or antiques so the pail and the ice bucket are both his.

I had taken a previous set of photos which I had shown to Sophie during section, and we both agreed it was underexposed. She advised lowering the shutter speed and bumping up the iso, which I did: from 100 to 400, and I brought the shutter speed from I think 1/160 to 1/80s, which made a big difference on the exposure.

My boyfriend bought some paper for the background because I did not want to have to iron the sheets again, but I think the cloth muslin background turned out okay. I was worried the wrinkles would be visible if I lowered the shutter speed.

For future application I will definitely be using exactly what I did for this assignment: using a black background and trying to find the best possible light to take pictures of these exact items and other silver antiques to sell. So this assignment actually served two purposes and I will be applying what I learned in this assignment to other goods as well.