Marble Mania Help!

tijosephtijoseph Registered Users Posts: 187 Major grins
edited November 24, 2009 in Technique
I have a customer that often asks me to photograph his crazy collections. So far I;ve had things like fly swatters, whisks, tooth fairy boxes, rubber duckies and tons of other crazy collections. I think he has over 30 of them! Anyways, he has jsut dropped off a bunch of marbles. Man, I've never seen marbles like these, they are pretty nice, and all are hand made.

He always asks that I take the photos on white. I constructed a small light box out of foam board and it has been working great.

The problem lies with the marbles. Many are clear! They have ribbons of different colors inside, but all are made of clear glass. Any ideas on how to photograph these on white, so that they can really pop?

Comments

  • bmoreshooterbmoreshooter Registered Users Posts: 210 Major grins
    edited November 23, 2009
    darkfeild
    Are you shooting them as a group or individually? There is a technique called darkfield photography that might provide some interesting results. To do this you will need a light box, not a dome or tent but the type for viewing slides or xrays. Place a sheet of glass above the box (about 4 to 6") Prop it up on the corners. Place a sheet of black paper "Black side up" on the light box just slightly smaller than the area covered by the marbles. This will allow some light to wrap up around the subject without blowing them out. Now add your soft light from above to pick up the colors inside the marbles. You may have to play around with the distances and size of the black sheet but it should help.
  • tijosephtijoseph Registered Users Posts: 187 Major grins
    edited November 24, 2009
    Ill be doing a little of both. Thanks for your advise. I think I'll have to trow out the total white background idea. Once I get going with this I post some pics.
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