[meteorite-list] THE ART OF PHOTOGRAPHING

[Gerald Flaherty]

Excellent Advice Dave! Jerry
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dave Freeman mjwy" <dfreeman at fascination.com>
To: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Saturday, May 21, 2005 1:15 PM
Subject: [meteorite-list] THE ART OF PHOTOGRAPHING


> Dear List;
> For the beginners of photographing meteorites and other rocks, minerals; 
> there are some handy tips to get more response to your photos/adds to 
> sell.
> 1.) throw away the blurry pictures.  With digital photos so easy to delete 
> and take another, why link to blurry pictures?
> 2.) a view of the overall size of the specimen is critical. a top or above 
> angled view, with good lighting, and a scale such as a ruler, ones' thumb 
> (which also helps with color scale, and trim your nails and wash hands 
> before photographing), or other size defining characteristic is very 
> important.  Since Ssex sells cars and everything else, I have thought of 
> getting a model with nicely done nails to hold a specimen for the camera. 
> Close up of the hand only as we still want the focus to be on the rock 
> specimen!
> 3. ) background area can help or detract from the specimen.  I prefer a 
> black soft cloth as a background so the viewer focuses on the specimen, 
> not what is in the back ground.
> 4.) Get one good clear correctly lit close up of the specimen to show 
> chondrules, visible iron specks, fusion crust...what ever is the best 
> trait to show off in the picture.
> 5.)  So, in the big picture:     one good picture of overall size and 
> shape of the specimen with a color and size scale and a darker less 
> interesting back ground.    A second picture of close up with good 
> lighting and maybe a hand or scale/ruler to show good size and define 
> colors.  One can have more pictures of different angles, filters, etc. and 
> even just one picture can represent a specimen many times.   It is 
> critical to delete the blurry pictures, to get some form of scale of the 
> over all shape and size of the specimen.  John G. has helped me to 
> understand lighting in that many cameras do better with a partial cloudy 
> day as direct sunlight gives to much light to the subject.  Practice using 
> the camera and teach it to be your friend, good pictures will sell items 
> twice as fast as poor quality pictures.
> Hope this helps the amateur photographer.   I am sure that many of you can 
> add to this one.
> Dave Freeman
> eBay power seller mjwy
> IMCA # 3864
> Rock Springs, WY
>
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