Photoshoot of Pens!
It's been raining all weekend here so why not spend the time indoors making chips fly? I spent the entire weekend at the Urban Workshop, a nearby makerspace. I completed 3 pens, and wrote another blog post about the lessons I learned while machining them. I set out to take some photos with my DSLR at home this evening, but as I was reviewing them, I realized I have a lot to learn about doing a good photoshoot, too. I have laid out the pictures in the gallery below. Please note that these photographs were all taken under lamplight indoors, with no natural light. I edited all of them with Adobe Photoshop Express to adjust the contrast, temperature, exposure and I also cropped them. Here are some things I need to think about more next time:
Light temperature and setting: I didn't put much thought into the temperature of the picture, but looking at how they came out, I would have preferred a much colder temperature than I got. I wanted to show off how precisely machined the pens were and colder light (maybe sunlight or a harsher light) would have highlighted my workmanship. I also used a piece of paper as a backdrop but now that I think about it, using a lightly stained wood background would be a nice contrast to the metal pens.
Depth of focus: my camera was set to a very narrow depth of focus - can I adjust my camera settings so that if the pen extends away from the viewer more of it will stay in focus?
Staying stationary: I was crouching while taking these shots and a lot of them came out shaky. Next time I will definitely use some kind of tripod.
Composition: I think I know where I was trying to go with some of the shots, but didn't quite refine them until they truly captured what I was imagining. For instance, in the first image in the slideshow above, I would have liked to have all 3 pens' mouths aligned perfectly. Alternatively, if I did want one to stand out, I should have offset it from the others more. Also, the fact that 2 of the 3 pens were loaded and the other one didn't contain a nib distracted from the composition.
I plan on making a lot more pens in the future, so I'm sure I'll have another opportunity to do this again!
