Approaches To Studio Lighting
Assignment #4 - Glass


Please hand in your unmounted prints in a polyethylene or polypropylene storage bag together with conservation boards and this sheet.

Assignment Description:
Use a 4x5 view camera to photograph a glass object with a white background, and a second image with a black background. These two backgrounds require different lighting strategies (see suggestions below). Hand in either two 11 x 14 inch silver-gelatin black and white prints, or two archival color ink jet prints of similar dimensions.

Assignment Objective:
Glass creates harsh spectral highlights. This assignments shows us how to use indirect light to accompish our aim of eliminating these harsh highlights while still rendering a sense of form and volume. This is indispensible for the still life and product photographer.

Suggestions:
When photographing a glass object, such as a wine glass, with a white background, it is necessary that no light points directly at the glass, but rather at the background in an otherwise completely darkened room. When photographing a glass object with a black background, it is necessary to place two large white scrims outside the image frame to the left and right of the object. The scrims must be broadly lit, however, no direct light should hit the glass.

Evaluation Criteria:
Craftsmanship - Sharpness
Exposure (full shadow and highlight detail)
Contrast (a solid black, a bright white, and a full range of gray values)
Value (appropriate lightness / darkness)
Needs dodging and/or burning
Cleanness (no dust, water spots, scratches)
Print damage
Aesthetic / Conceptual refinement (accomplishes assignment description and meets objective)

Grade ___________


Student Name_______________________________


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