Swarovski

Photo: The clown fish from the crystal piece “Harmony” of the 2005-07 SCS Swarovski Trilogy.

Since my wife picked up her 100^th crystal piece from Swarovski today – yes, I said 100^th – I thought I’d fish out a photo from the set I shot last year in commemoration. Now, you’re probably thinking a 100-piece collection of these little guys is a lot. We’ll … you’re right.

But keep in mind that Cindy’s going on her fifth year as a SCS Member, and with their annual member pieces and new collections coming out 2-3 times a year, it’s easy to see how it adds up over time.

Another shoot looking back at the Swarovski collection photoset I put together back in October. Every time I see one of these shots (which was done with my existing gear and mostly natural light) I get the urge to buy/rent a macro lens, build a black-lined lightbox/tent, grab a few lights and spend a couple of hours shooting a ton of these figures and their mirrors.

Well, since Santa’s budget for the year was gone shortly after coming back from the Maui Photo Festival in September, there won’t be any new glass under my tree this year.   But that’s okay. I still like the way these came out, and with the entire week off for the holiday starting on Monday, I might carve out some time to give it another go at it with what I have already.

Another Assignment

Aside from that, and while I’m actually taking time to write here at the blog this week, I thought I’d call myself out for another shoot that I’ve been promising myself I will do.

We live about 2 miles from this replica of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and this time of year they do a great job of decorating it with green and red colors on each alternating level. Against a clear, or even a somewhat cloudy, dark night sky, those colors are incredibly vivid and really pop, and each time we drive by (at least 3x a week), I keep saying I’m coming back.

Now that I’ve mentioned it here, that could be enough to get me out there to shoot it. We’ll see.

– Kris

One of the things on my long list of photography techniques to gear up for and practice is macro photography. This shot is one from my little project a few months ago, and while some of the images came out nice, it wasn’t a true macro shoot in my mind.

For example, this image was taken with my kit 18-55mm lens from my Rebel XSi.  It wasn’t until about 15 minutes later until I switched to my telephoto zoom lens and moved the tripod further back. I’d definitely want to do this shoot again someday with a macro lens that shoots with 1:1 magnification, but I’d probably end up renting a lens before I’m able to throw down good money for one of my very own.

One of my favorites from the little weekend shoot of my wife’s Swarovski Collection yesterday.

I can’t take credit for the pairing of these two figurines out of her large collection, as it was recommended by one of the sale associates when we picked up the Halloween Mo last week.

Some day soon (I hope), I’ll be grabbing a macro lens, building a lightbox, and shooting these little pieces in a staged setting rather than just in our display curio cabinet at home. Until then, these didn’t come out to bad.

If you want to read more about what I did and see more photos, click here.

My wife’s been collecting Swarovski figurines for about 3 years now, and it was the idea of bringing photos to an upcoming designer signing nearby that got me inspired to break out the gear and shoot some photos of her crystal treasures.

Eventually, I’m hoping to build a small lightbox, probably black or navy blue, to take out individual and related pieces to shoot something more staged and play around with some of the lights bouncing off the crystal at different angles.

But for now, I went ahead and shot them right in our curio cabinet. When I get to do the lightbox project, I’ll probably spring for a macro lens, just to do it properly.

The Project
The lighting in our living room isn’t that great as far as shooting crystal figurines goes, and the cabinet lighting is a not so flattering yellow lighting (which is why we hardly turn it on). So, in order to get the best lighting I could without an elaborate setup was to use the natural light from our balcony doors.

We have a south facing balcony, harsh sunlight wasn’t going to be a concern until later in the afternoon.  I was planning the shoot in the morning on Sunday, but ended up sleeping in (which I hardly ever do anymore) and these shots were taken at around 1pm. It actually worked out nicely because the skies were overcast enough to give me some soft light to work with, although I did do a little testing with the cabinet lighting and a small flashlight.

HDR to the Rescue
There were some scenes I was shooting that just weren’t working for me as is. So, I shot a few of them as bracketed shots, since I was already using my tripod and remote shutter release anyway. I went with the realistic tone mapping for this one and not any of the surreal settings like you see with other HDR photos. I’m still playing around with PhotoMatix, and I probably could have done a better job had I not been using the trial mode still and went with the Details Enhancer.

Still, I’m fairly happy with the results, and of the 16 original photos in this photoset, 4 of them are HDR.  Other than checking the Flickr tags for “hdr”, can you tell the difference as to which ones are single shot exposures and which ones are HDR?

More Photos
You can see all the photos over at the new Swarovski Collection photoset on my Flickr page, and if you happen to be at the Woodfield Shopping Center for the designer signing event on Saturday, stop by and I’ll show you the prints, too.