What are you talking, "not exactly art"?
Horsehockey! (as Colonel Potter of M*A*S*H used to say)
That's great stuff, IMHO. No wonder your client was thrilled. I'd have been, too.
Great work!
cheers, frank
"The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears it is true." -J. Robert Oppenheimer
From: "Tanya Mayer Photography" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Today, I feel as though I have achieved something.... Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 18:14:25 +1000
Hi guys and gals,
Warning - loooooong, "fairygirl" post to follow... (grab yourself a cuppa before reading...)
Well, right now it is 5.16pm on Friday afternoon. My eyes are barely open,
my brain is like jelly, I am totally drained. (Sounds like me normally eh?
lol). I have been shooting non-stop for the past 3 days. Today, I shot for
9 hours straight, yesterday, it was 8 and the day before it was 10 hours!
Of course, when I say "non-stop", I mean with breaks and attending to my
kids etc, BUT it is the headspace that I have been in for 3 straight days
that has me so exhausted. I have today, completed shooting, cataloguing,
burning files to CD, printing contact sheets filing etc. for my first REAL,
commercial job. These are the "product shots" that some of you may have
noticed me refer to over the past few days.
The shots are for a new kids clothing label. They specialise in children's
workwear for "on the land". I have been shooting in manual focus as a large
amount of the shots have been macro shots and closeups of buttons,
stitching, labels etc. This explains why my eyes are so exhausted. These 3
days of shooting have covered all of the studio type photography. Shots of
the garments in close detail, shots of packaging, still life shots with
props to use to "decorate" the website etc. In the next few days, we will
begin shooting on location with kids dressed in the clothes. I can't wait
to do this, as this is the type of photography I am passionate about. In
fact, it will incorporate my two favourite mediums - child photography and
fashion - in the same shoot. We are going for high saturation, country
themed location photography and it will be such fun.
Adding to the "fun factor" is the fact that I have been/will be shooting
exclusively digital. A purchase from a list member who has upgraded to the
*istD has enabled me with an Olympus DSLR. Not EXACTLY what I have been
aiming for, but nevertheless, a FANTASTIC buy, with remarkable ability and
luuuurvly results, and the perfect "starting point" for me to enter into
digital shooting. I still intend to purchase/lease the *istD in the not too
distant future (or another body should their be a better successor), but
until then, I am having a ball, providing my clients with the best service
possible for our isolated township, and learning ALOT.
Due to the "Olly", I have really "discovered" the joys of studio
photography. Something that I have previously been a bit "scared" to play
with too much due to the extra expense etc. But, now I am able to
experiment at will, and see immediate results. The product work that I have
completed these past few days would have been near impossible, had I not had
the digital camera to work with. One example was with the lighting of the
garments whilst in their packaging. They have a highly reflective sticker
on the front that was causing me all manner of grief with hotspots from the
lighting, I would never have known this had I not been able to view the
shots immediately via the digital camera, and not only would I have wasted
alot of film, I would have also been extremely disappointed when the films
came back and even more disheartened at the thought of having to re-setup
and re-shoot to get the results that I needed. The lens on this camera is
magnificent - in fact, I had problems with it being TOO good and picking up
every single fragment of dust or fibre on the dark fabrics that I was
photographing when in macro mode.
So, I have today, delivered to my client, a CD with 185 usable images on it.
This, I culled from approximately 240 that I downloaded from the camera, and
god knows how many that I deleted as I was shooting. Although, technically,
they are probably not *that* great, my client is overjoyed. Her original
budget was only going to allow her 4 rolls of film (around 100 shots),
INCLUDING the "rejects" AND the location photography. She already has
almost double this, with the location photography yet to come. It hasn't
cost me anything, except for my time, and I have learnt more than I ever
thought that I could in such a short space of time.
So, today, despite being exhausted, I truly feel as though I have achieved
something, and that I am about to begin yet another chapter in my
photography learning curve. Makes me even more excited to anticipate the
fun that I'll be able to have when I am enabled with a DSLR that can use all
of my favourite lenses too!
If anyone is interested, the proofs are online. They are not perfect, by
any means, and there are still many "rejects" present amongst them, but I
hope at least that they look somewhat professional, and would love to hear
your thoughts. This is a full set of proofs, so please be aware that there
are ALOT, AND that the colours/exposure may vary due to bracketing to
prevent detail loss. These files are exactly as downloaded from my camera,
the only manipulation has been to resize for the purpose of the automated PS
Gallery. Levels, cropping etc, will of course be adjusted when the client
chooses the final shots for her website and catalogue. The props used were
at the clients request (except for the basket, wheat and chair which I added
myself), to tie in with the country theme.
My favourites are found on these pages...
http://www.tanyamayer.com/kidsrunnaumuck/index_9.html (the ones with the grass/chair)
http://www.tanyamayer.com/kidsrunnaumuck/index_12.html
Exposures vary greatly, but were between f5.6 and f2, with studio lighting,
metered with a hand-held flashmeter. Shutter speed probably around 1/60 but
irrelavent due to the flash anyways... The three colours of the garments
were so hard to work with, extremely high contrast and very dark fabrics
with the blue/green, and very BRIGHT with the pink. Really difficult to
expose so that they are all accurately represented...
So here is the first page of them... Not exactly art, but hard work all the
same... (the first ones of the labels/tissue paper are pretty crappy, but
hey, you get that)...
http://www.tanyamayer.com/kidsrunnaumuck/index.html
Sorry about the "Olympus Digital Camera" caption at the bottom of each page,
PS did that automatically, and I am too lazy to go through all 185 pages to
delete it...
For anyone who takes the time to look through them, thankyou so much! I
have these questions to ask, if you were offered these to "show off" a
product of your own, would you be happy with them, or am I just kidding
myself, are they seriously crap? Or if you were a potential customer, would
you purchase these garments judged on what you see in these pics? Have I
made the garments look good? Or crap? There are the odd threads etc
showing that will be removed in PS later on...
So, back to the title of this post, today, I do feel buggered, my house is a
mess, my kids are neglected (well, not really, but you know what I mean),
BUT, I really feel as though I have achieved something... Thanks for
listening to me prattle on...
Now, I'd better go and cook some dinner! lol..
tan.
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