new shots, comparison

This weekend, I made a light tent of sorts in order to keep the reflections on the spoon down. I lit the tent with two studio spotlights that I nabbed from work. I shot them once during the day with sunlight and the spotlights, and that was too much. I shot them again last evening once it was dark using just the spotlights and a flash. I lost the interesting shadow for the most part, and the colors are way different. I was happy with the photo results until I compared them to my first attempt. see below. Man these things are difficult.

the left was the first attempt, the right is my third. as you can see I've eliminated all reflections except the lens, but i don't like the color at all.

Spoons Project Introduction

I recently acquired an old spoon collection that once belonged to Hanna's late grandmother. Lucy Anne's silver spoon collection had piqued my interest when I had seen them displayed predominately in her house. Apparently my interest was noted, and Hanna's parents gave the set to me. I had them for only a day before I decided I wanted to photograph them. So I went and grabbed poster-board, my Nikon D-40, my new flash, and a tripod and headed upstairs to my sister's room, where a good amount of light was coming in, to set up a good photo set up(!). Then I went and polished the spoons with my mom. I was able to photograph all 60 or so spoons that afternoon.

I have decided to make a book, handmade and rather limited edition, of this silver spoon collection. It will be be a photographic book, detailing the spoons and their relationship together. I am extremely excited about it, and can't wait to move forward with it. I will have to re-shoot the spoons later under a more controlled environment, but these photos will do for now as I work on layout. Here's a few samples.


As you may see, I need to shoot them in a way that there are no reflections. How to do that I have yet to decide.