Photo Corners headlinesarchivemikepasini.com
A S C R A P B O O K O F S O L U T I O N S F O R T H E P H O T O G R A P H E R
Enhancing the enjoyment of taking pictures with news that matters, features that entertain and images that delight. Published frequently.
Friday Slide Show: Fusion Glass
28 July 2023
We had a few out-of-state visitors this week, among them our great niece Viv, who is a glass blower and on her way to Pilchuck Glass School this summer. We featured her pumpkin in a 2021 slide show, in fact.
This time she brought us a glass dish that was created from trim parts of a larger project. Fusion glass, you might say.
The first thing we thought about was how we might photograph it. Which turned out not to be as easy as we thought.
Its blue and yellow and clear components create the color but there is also a texture to the piece you only appreciate when viewing it at an angle.
The first thing we thought about was how we might photograph it.
So we took that shot at an angle and were pleased with it.
Then we decided to backlight the glass by aiming a strobe at a white card and holding the glass dish in front of the white card to catch the light bouncing off the card.
We used an eggcrate light modifier on the strobe to focus the light narrowly on the card and we like that solution, too.
Until we took a look at the images in Lightroom. There was no yellow. Just a brownish color.
We consulted the dish, which we had returned to the coffee table. There was no brown in it at all. Just clear, blue and yellow. What happened?
It didn't take us long to figure it out.
The yellow glass is opaque so our backlit shoot didn't illuminate it. It was only lit by the ambient light, which in this case was minimal.
We took the dish back to the bunker and shot it in diffused sunlight that reflected off the opaque yellow and gave quite a different picture of the glass dish.
We've included a couple of the backlight images in this slide show so you can see what we're talking about.
But the reflected light images more closely resemble what the piece looks like.
