Life is like a box of chocolate... you never know what you gonna get... I took this from Forrest Gump.
I do believe there is the truth behind those delicious chocolate. I met Sylvus from
Adrialis, who is a very good photographer.
Of course, I have to ask him tips in taking good photograph and wondering how did all start...
Here what he has to say...
When as a child I asked my parents for a camera, they wanted to know whether I preferred one with lots of controls, or a simple one. I didn't think I could cope with something complicated, so I ended up getting a brownie type. My father's mantra was `Nothing is simple', and
that proved to be the case here---I wanted to photograph flowers and other closeup subjects, and so eventually he gave me his old voightlander, a 35mm pocket camera he'd picked up in Germany. This camera was completely manual.
Eventually, my mom sold me her SLR, a canon T-70, and it was with this camera that I took a studio photography class, since it was obvious that my untrained efforts weren't getting me into art fairs. At the time, the wisdom was that you paid a professional to take your shots but I was
too cheap to do that. (This sentiment has gotten me into trouble more than once.) Given that professional film was roughly $5--10 for a roll of 36 exposures, and professional processing another $10, the learning curve could be rather pricey. And it's still good advice, especially if
the images are needed for print work, such as magazines, at least for the next several years or so.
I'd say the thing that's improved my studio photography the most is doing it for other people---I shoot Kristin Perkin's work all the time, and her parameters are different than mine. Her requirements forced me to try new things. Recently I shot this huge jungle animal necklace for
another lampworking friend and because of the animal heads in the piece I had to use more of a straight down approach than I typically do with the round or vessel bead pieces that Page and I make. I never did really get it right but she was kind enough to pay me anyway.
Most of my improvements have been small, incremental things---little accidents and discoveries that, over time, accumulate. I think a lot of artists work this way. And sometimes, to be frank, I just fail miserably, give up, and wait a few hours, or days, or months, or sometimes, years, and try again. Eventually, with luck and persistence, I do better. These two conditions are why so many teachers tell you to save your earliest work, I think, so you do realize that you're
learning, even if it seems you're not. Jewelry in any case is kind of a pest because it's often so reflective (shiny) and glass adds the complication of transparency to the mix.
Digital photography has made good quality images far more accessible, not least because the film and developing are, in effect, free (technically, a sunk cost) with really only time and interest being limiting factors to learning. My interests are pretty narrow---reference shots or mementos when I'm out and about, and straightforward jury-type shots in the studio---but of course this applies to any style. There are a lot more tools nowadays too---besides
on board light-meters, there's autofocus, settable white balance, histograms, post-processing (I use gimp and gqview, open source image editing and image viewing programs). And, of course, there's a lot of online info for learning about photography, even for choosing cameras
(Phil Astley's DCReview is my fave for the latter).
Even something as simple as gridding is surprisingly helpful---I cannot seem to shoot level. Given the increasing use of zapplication and popularity of etsy, both of which require square formats, which I suspect reflects the need to organize thumbnails and icons neatly on
monitors, it will be interesting to see if cameras start incorporating square ratios, or at least square gridding, in addition to the traditional 3:2 proportion we use now. Already I crop much less tightly than I used to; I'm also having to learn to compose more squarely.
I admit, for digital photography, a good-quality monitor is a big help, but if you're short on cash, I'd look into linux---it's much less resource hungry than windows, so you can get by with older technology. Besides being free, of course. The generosity of the Open Source movement is one reason I license my stuff with the creativecommons license, and welcome the opportunity to spread what I know---a little bit of thanks for all those other folks' work that makes it possible for me to do digital photography (not to mention the rejiquar website, which is the raison d'etre for much of it) in the first place.
Photography is like a lot of other media. It *helps* to have the best equipment, but it's absolutely not necessary: I got by for years with a coolpix 990, which aside from its tendency to clip blue-based reds is perfectly adequate for web-based images or even 4x6 postcards. The
camera I use now, the coolpix 8400, is still basically a high end POS (point and shoot). With, admittedly, manual overrides. It's *almost* good enough to make 35mm slide-quality images for art fairs.
My other equipment consists of a tripod, a lightstand with 500w 3200 kelvin
bulb, a piece of scrap plexi, an old standup mirror, some translucent white plastic from Home Depot (i.e. fluorescent lighting panels), and a couple of sheets of 30x40 white foamcore. So really, I'm using the lampworking equivalent of a hothead and fiber blanket here. And just as
heat is ultimately the most important tool for making glass beads, light is most important component of good photography. And that's available to everyone.
sylvus tarn
etsy shop: adrialis
websites (with page) http://adrialis.com
http://rejiquar.com
