Pottery, Photography, Design - Brandon "Fuzzy" Schwartz
When I’m not teaching or making pots, I like to learn about photography. My wife and I do portraits but I have more fun shooting sports, nature and closeup or macro shots.
I recently took a number of photos of some recent pottery and some pottery ribs that I’ve purchased. I’m using a macro attachment on a kit lens so it’s nothing fancy. Probably not even true macro but I got some nice detail shots. For more info about the subject matter: pottery and pottery ribs.
slab built cup closeup
Here are a few samples of a shoot we did way back in October.
All photos were taken downtown Goshen. Overcast and a little chilly.
It LOOKS better, when I photograph it anyway. I was just getting some photos of finished pottery ready to post here and I noticed the difference that my circular polarizer made when I was shooting photos. Take a look at the three unedited images to the right.
effect of a circular polarizer
Which image do you like best?
If your favorite is not the top image then you have the same thought as I do: the circular polarizer makes the mugs look better. It accomplishes this by cutting down some of the reflection on the glossy glaze. The bottom two images are shots with the circular polarizer turned in two different directions. Both are a drastic improvement over the non polarized image in my opinion.
I’ve always noticed that there is a reflection from light bouncing up off the backdrop. It’s not a big deal for some pieces. But the reflection can really wash out the colors of other pieces. I’ve even used a circular polarizing filter before. But I guess it was just too much trouble to dig out the circular polarizer and the lens that it fits until now. Now I’ve got the lens with the polarizing filter down by my photo booth permanently since I don’t use it for much else.
You can find circular polarizing filters at any camera shop or online at places like amazon.com
Just a quick post to show some fun closeup/macro photos I took last weekend. Taken with a Canon 30D, 100-300mm lens with macro attachment. Some adjustments in Photoshop.
My wife and I had the pleasure of taking some photos of a high school senior from “The Ridge” a few weeks ago. He was more a fan of architecture and structures instead of nature and landscapes so we got together in the booming metropolis of Goshen, IN. Below are some of MY favorites:
I’m always surprised how different some of my favorites are compared to what the client picks out or even my wife’s favorites.
It was our 3rd or 4th senior photo session but our first time shooting in “the city”. There were a lot of great backgrounds and interesting textures and places to shoot photos. In fact, I wish we had more time to do some experimenting. But in the end we got a pretty good group of photos for him to choose from. I even got to have a little fun in Photoshop while doing the post processing. I added some graffiti to some of the walls using Photoshop and some tutorials from here.
All the photos were shot in RAW format on a Canon 20D or 350D. Raw files were processed in Camera Raw and some effects were applied in Photoshop CS4.