Ready for my close-up
Apr. 23rd, 2015 10:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
offcntrThere are a lot of things I do to make my pottery business work. Making pots, of course. Glazing, decorating, firing, yeah. But then there's selling: applying for shows, setting up, working the booth, taking down again. Publicity: designing postcards, keeping a mailing list, maintaining and updating my website. Answering email, taking orders, tracking invoices, packing and shipping pots. Keeping my books and doing my taxes and taking inventory several times a year so I have a clue of what's selling and what I need to make next.
But there are two jobs I pass off to someone else. I don't mix my own clay (though I do recycle it). And I don't take my own photographs.
Oh, I shoot candid shots and quick takes, good enough for this blog or my website. But for pictures that count, jury slides, I go to a professional.
You see, nobody looks at pots anymore. Galleries and retail art fairs jury your work from images, formerly slides or prints, now almost universally digital. And while they may try to be objective, and look only at the quality of the work, there is no way to avoid the fact that the quality of the image will also have an effect.
I used to take my own slides (and back then, they were slides). I had 6000k photofloods, a 35mm camera, a velvet back drop that was sheer hell to keep clean. Between cat hair and clay dust and having no space I could dedicate just to picture taking, it was a major production to set up, light, bracket, shoot and then put everything away again, just to get half a dozen new jury images.
Fast forward to the present. I've been working with my current photographer, Jon Meyers since he started his business, twelve years ago. I've seen his set-up grow and change, his business flourish. He has cutting edge equipment, he has an intern, he's teaching photography at Lane Community College, he's got a devoted and high-profile clientele. And he's a really good photographer.
I love the fact that he knows what I want my work to look like. He knows how to light my pots. He gives me clean, consistent images. And he does it with a minimum of fuss and fiddling. I brought in a box of new work yesterday, and in less than an hour, I had eight new jury shots.
But there are two jobs I pass off to someone else. I don't mix my own clay (though I do recycle it). And I don't take my own photographs.
Oh, I shoot candid shots and quick takes, good enough for this blog or my website. But for pictures that count, jury slides, I go to a professional.
You see, nobody looks at pots anymore. Galleries and retail art fairs jury your work from images, formerly slides or prints, now almost universally digital. And while they may try to be objective, and look only at the quality of the work, there is no way to avoid the fact that the quality of the image will also have an effect.
I used to take my own slides (and back then, they were slides). I had 6000k photofloods, a 35mm camera, a velvet back drop that was sheer hell to keep clean. Between cat hair and clay dust and having no space I could dedicate just to picture taking, it was a major production to set up, light, bracket, shoot and then put everything away again, just to get half a dozen new jury images.
Fast forward to the present. I've been working with my current photographer, Jon Meyers since he started his business, twelve years ago. I've seen his set-up grow and change, his business flourish. He has cutting edge equipment, he has an intern, he's teaching photography at Lane Community College, he's got a devoted and high-profile clientele. And he's a really good photographer.
I love the fact that he knows what I want my work to look like. He knows how to light my pots. He gives me clean, consistent images. And he does it with a minimum of fuss and fiddling. I brought in a box of new work yesterday, and in less than an hour, I had eight new jury shots.
Photo shoot
Date: 2015-04-23 08:07 pm (UTC)Re: Photo shoot
Date: 2015-04-24 08:28 pm (UTC)Wish we'd thought to take a wide shot of the set-up so people could see what a hay-wire rig it was creating that lovely, sophisticated the-ay-TAH image. Who finished off the wine? I know is wasn't me, because I didn't (and still don't) drink...