Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Enlightening Experience

Well, after years of taking all of my Teddy Bear pictures outside, and freezing my fingers off (and other body parts, too)in weather like we are having today, I bought a light tent studio. I still really like the look of the pictures I take outside--the bears look good in their natural habitat--but magazines and stores require pictures with "plain, uncluttered backgrounds". It will also be nice not to have to depend on the weather to cooperate when I need to photograph a bear.

I have taken some photographs with my new light tent, and of course I will have to experiment to find out how to best use it, but I do think it will work out.

This is how the studio is set up. My camera tripod is, of course, empty because I had to take it off to take THIS picture!



Here is a photo of Brendan's Paddington now fully outfitted with his hat and coat. (He did a beautiful job with the clothes, too, didn't he?) This photo is one of the best I took, because the bear is smaller and less of the light tent shows. If I had aimed my camera a bit more carefully none of the tent seams would have shown.I'm learning!



I also learned that I don't care for the black background--not the one that came with it anyway, the folds show,(I know, I know,I could iron it, but who wants to do that very time?) and it washes out the bear.



The white background shows the folds a bit too, but not nearly as much as the black, but I think the bear's color looks great with the white. The other backgrounds included are bright red and bright blue, and they are shiny. I am thinking that I will use the included backgrounds as templates to cut the blue felt and the tan vinyl that I've used before to fit in the tent. Neither of those are wrinkly at all. This photo could be cropped better as well.



Here is one more.I was thinking that photo editing software could adjust the backgrounds, too. For example, I think could use the cloning tool to wipe out that seam area behind Paddington's ear in this one, but I'd rather not have to fool with that too much.



Anyway, this was an enlightening experience!

2 comments:

Vallier Bears said...

Brilliant set up!

I'm not at all good at taking photos, but my boyfriend is.

Try matt poster board, starting at the backe, top of your tent, coming along the back with a little curve at the bottom so no seams show as the poster board come forward. Saves time having to photoshop the photos. Also, try moving your lights around a little. You will get different affects.

Good luck and I'm sure you will get amazing photos in no time.

Richy~

Tami Eveslage said...

Thanks Richy! I will try the posterboard--save ironing it too!