Soapstone carving

Don Kondra

Let's call this a work in progress :wink

I'm having second thoughts on the background treatment, perhaps a little too moody ?



Cheers, Don

David_S85

I would agree with the too moody part. Either white BG or black BG (and light the piece more)?

Don Kondra

Thanks David,

Throwing more light at it doesn't help

The surface is so smooth with concave and convex shapes it's difficult to get an angle on it...

I don't think I'll go any further down the road with that image/processing but it does suggest some creative lighting scenario's for the future.

Apparently the client has a body of work shot with the traditional gray paper/graduated background, I just went veering off on a tangent

Not knowing what the properties of the object would be, I set up before the client arrived with a 20" x 20" softbox from directly above, a 2' x 3' softbox camera left and a 48" octobox camera right.

The image below was my first shot. With a new Nikon D7100 and new tethering software BTW

Luckily the only setting I missed was Auto WB, easily corrected in post.

Anywho, that is when I lost control of the shoot.

The client was not willing to leave the piece and in the limited time we had we then proceeded on a quest for less highlights and just the right shadows, sigh...



I really would prefer to get it right in camera but I did become more familiar with DxO/Elements 11 editing tools

BTW - I come across these types of commissions often enough that I'm finally going to get around to finding a supplier of polarizing film for a set of softboxes...

Cheers, Don