Pottery

juggler

juggler

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Simon
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My mother-in-law Sophie Milburn died a year ago after a long and unpleasant illness.

Sophie was a fine ceramicist and trained with Lucie Rie and Hans Coper. She was very highly skilled, though she always prized character over technical perfection and was rather deprecating about her own work.

I had a short while one afternoon to photograph a few of her 'wonky pots' - we hope to have some of them accepted by the Fitzwilliam Museum.

Her pottery is but one of the marks she left on the world; she'll be much missed.

Feedback (on the photography!) welcome. These were surprisingly tricky to light - some complex shapes and a mixture of matt and highly reflective, smooth and textured finishes in close proximity.

I see now that the pics convey no sense of scale. The largest - the 3rd one - is probably 15 inches across.


Sophie's Pots I by Simon Carter, on Flickr


Sophie's Pots III by Simon Carter, on Flickr


Sophie's Pots IV by Simon Carter, on Flickr

More on my flickr feed if you're interested.
 
They're looking good to me.
Lots of detail and finely lit. They remind me of Bethy's pics of fruit with the low contrast.
The background is well done too.

I like them.
 
juggler said:
Thanks!

I hadn't intended them to be similar to Beth's but it's difficult not to be influenced - though I didn't do much in post other than tidy up the background.
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To be clear, they look like they were done by her brother, not her :D

We're all influenced by what we see.
 
To be honest, they're outstanding.
 
Nice detailed shot's and love the lighting.
 
Wow to both the shots and the pots. Fail to see how you could improve. Stunningly classy shots.
 
The pots are brilliant and your photos of them are absolutely spot on, great details, great depth, thank you for sharing.
 
Hi Simon.

You did those justice for sure.
How did you light them.
Softbox above + a feathered/flagged light skiming accros from the right.
Please tell me a got something right in that guess :)

Gaz
 
For the first 2 I used a small gridded softbox pretty close, firing through another closer diffuser - tracing paper - at the back right. There was a another smallish softbox very close and front left. I'm not convinced using two softboxes opposite one another is always a good idea - you can end up with double shadows on the floor or none at all. There were also various bits of black craft foam and white card to further control the light.

The third one had a small softbox above and slightly behind, again firing through a 3rd diffuser, and a large silver reflector below and in front.
 
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I really quite like the lack of scale, gives a more open photograph, inviting me to think about the objects more. Not the kind of thing you're normally aiming for in 'product photography' but then this is more than that, and it works (intentional or not).
 
Well I think I got a bit of that right, well what I mean by that is I used the word softbox !!!
I'm thinking you have a very technical brain Simon and don't run with the Kiss rule of thumb :)
Clever stuff indeed.

Gaz
 
cargo said:
Well I think I got a bit of that right, well what I mean by that is I used the word softbox !!!
I'm thinking you have a very technical brain Simon and don't run with the Kiss rule of thumb :)
Clever stuff indeed.

Gaz
Click to expand...

I am technically minded, true - though I'm really only interested in what's necessary to do the job, I don't like much of the camera geekery that goes on.
The end setup seems rather complex but it's only the result of adding and adjusting one light at a time; it's rare that a complex lighting setup will arrive fully formed.

The process is probably more interesting than the final setup:

I wanted the background to complement the pots and a white background would have been too sterile and distracted from the detail. Having chosen a background that was the same colour as the pots I needed to separate the them from the background. I also wanted to make sure they looked 3 dimensional, and I wanted the pots to look grounded by having a visible shadow - even if it wasn't very strong.

A rim light could provide separation and cast a shadow forwards so that's where I started.

The first attempt - just a small softbox - blasted too much light over the background, so I added a grid.

Then I realised that the specular highlights were too harsh, so added another diffuser.

There was still too much light hitting parts of the background so added a few bits of black craft foam.

I wanted to show the texture and 3 dimensionality of the pots so needed some light coming across them sideways. I started with a white bounce card but it didn't do enough, so replaced it with another softbox to camera left. This needed careful aiming so as not to totally destroy the shadow on the floor.

Then there was another small piece of white card above to bounce some light down onto the rim of the pots and another to bring bounce light into the underside. And that's pretty much it.
 
juggler said:
The process is probably more interesting than the final setup:
Click to expand...
Yes !
I really appreciate you taking the time to talk me through your thoughts before/during the making of this image.It's great when you have learnt (as you have) what light plus modifer is needed and to what effect it will have.
Your reply is so very helpful.

Thanks Simon.

Gaz
 
I think you have done more than justice to these works of art. Looking at them I never considered the lighting, they just look right to my eyes and mind.

I would usually ignore flicker references but liked these so much I went to your flicker gallery to see more!
 
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juggler said:
The process is probably more interesting than the final setup:
Click to expand...
This is how I feel about photography or more to the point, something that makes my brain work. I have great joy in solving problems or finding solutions to problems. Obviously it's all about the end result and doesn't matter if it doesn't follow the so called rules.
On the case of your photos, i think they look great. No distractions and well lit. I'm not sure if you need to give a sense of scale, the idea that they could be 4' tall or 4" tall actually adds some interest (well for me anyway). If these were for a brochure or such like then that's a different matter and I then think a sense of scale may be needed.
 
Beautifully lit. Superb work.
These are the kind of shots that you expect to see in galleries and fine art establishments. A credit to your skills as a photography
 
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