Susan’s Quilt April 20
Hey, I realized I had completely forgotten to blog the actual photo from the previous quilt shoot.
This is the very lovely & amazing quilt by Susan Fuller of EBHQ. I believe it is 45″ square or 48″ square.
And the video/photo was featured on strobist.com.
V Kingsley Apr 23
Hi there, Ben. (Mr. Peoples?) I was glad to see the actual photograph from this shoot (I was one who went searching for it after seeing the You Tube). I was just wondering if you shot any details or macro shots? I was most especially interested in how you light the piece and wanted to see what visual effect the lighting had on being able to read texture in the final photograph. Thanks a lot for letting us in on the process! I thoroughly enjoy your visual perspective.
ben Apr 23
Hi V!
I did shoot details and some macro, but I have filed them away, and so wasn’t able to immediately put my hands on them. However, I did have these couple of shots from another shoot I did:
(Click for larger)
Which are a “vignette” and a “detail”, respectively. You’ll see in the vignette you can see a bit of the texture of the quilting, but not too much in the fabric. In the detail, you can really get down to seeing the quality of the piecing and the actual texture in the fabric.
As far as my lighting, I don’t move the big lights, although I do sometimes turn one off if I’m getting a shadow from it. However, I do pick up the small speedlight and use that to rake some texture across the quilt.
I’ve found that there’s a delicate middle ground between not enough texture and too much texture (which shows defects). I’m still working to strike the balance exactly, but I think I’m putting a pretty good effort at it.
If I lit the quilts entirely with the AlienBees (the big lights on stands), they would be very evenly lit, but almost entirely without texture. Bringing in the top light gives them a natural direction to the texture, and highlights it out without detriment to the even lighting.
Let me know if you have more questions. Thanks!