I shoot two artist's work regularly: my own, and Kristin Perkins’. While both of us use opaque accents in our beads, we tend to emphasize transparency. Kristin adds another layer of complication (from the photographer's point of view) with the highly polished silver in which she sets her beads:
22feb2014. 1/30 sec, f4.5, 200ISO, incandescent photoflood lighting. [1] Click on the image for the full-size version.
Compare this to Lisa St Martin's work:
shot 12nov2015, f2.5, using flash. Click on the image for the full-size version.
Lisa's beads are all about the dichro, and I needed to emphasize that aspect for her photos. I love photographing beads, but deadlines keep me from endlessly fussing[2] ; even so, I knew I needed to style these beads a little differently. This meant I could try out some new techniques shooting Lisa's beads, as well as subjecting them to the tried and true.
This is what I'll be exploring in this series.
[1]The reason I know it's photofloods is because the bead is touching the surface. I honestly don't know whether it's shot on translucent white or black plexi, but I'm guessing the latter, since the line shows back there, whereas at that distance the white plexi and white foamcore would probably blur more. Yes, black plexi can look that light. Really.
[2]Which is why I will never be a world class photographer.
Unless otherwise noted, text, image and objects depicted therein copyright 1996--present sylvus tarn.
