Building a back ground for dead sea creatures....

[John Kasaian]

One of my projects is some 1:1 tabletop work of a collection of marine specimens (these are large specimens that will fill an 8x10 sheet of film.) The end use is purely for decoration---beach house stuff for my sister who dearly loves the coast but has been invalide for almost a year now.
My first problem is that I don't have any lights. My two Photoflex soft boxes and Savage backdrop stand were traded for stone tiles for milady's bath remodel. I do have a single old Mole Richardson200 watt midget solarspot but nothing to diffuse the light to make it useable.
So I have to use old Sol. The second big challenge is making a background. I'd like to use drift wood if I could find a larger enough section, or perhaps oak, maybe even beach or aquarium sand. I was wondering if you might have any suggestions for me to consider?

[David R Munson]

Have you considered scrounging around for a piece of plywood that's sat out in the elements for a number of years? It's a material that often winds up beautifully weathered, and would have the advantages of both being flat and also potentially big enough that you could get a lot of variations in background out of a single piece.

[Jim Jones]

Painting with light is useful for still life setups. It is cheap and gives more control than soft boxes. For the Solarspot, drape a diffuser or reflector over an improvised T-bar on top of a light stand. For something suggesting a marine environment, I horde the fragments of lime buildup from a water heater. Probably some forms of pasta with a little food dye would also work. Weathering of wood can be somewhat simulated with a wire brush wheel in an electric drill.

[DrTang]

background: 16x20 matt board, spray adheasive...some very dry, filtered beach sand

easy to store / cheap

[Jim C.]

Some suggestions -

MR 200 watt light - if you're shooting B&W use a light filtering curtain to diffuse. Keep an eye on it depending on how far
the light is from it to prevent scorching.

I don't know why I thought you're in Illinois, but you're sort of close to the Pacific, you might do a little beach combing to
see if there's any drift wood or seaweed. Fish stores sometimes get seafood packed in seaweed, worth a try to see if
they'll give it to you, if a 100 +/- mile drive isn't something you'd want to do.

Pet stores have aquarium sand which I think has been cleaned, or the home centers have sand for concrete work, but they're going to be
25 - 50lb bags.

[Christopher Barrett]

A nice light for something like that could be the solarspot on one side shooting through diffusion and maybe a bounce card on the opposite side if you need to fill the shadow. A great, cheap diffusion material is a frosted shower curtain. You can just hang the curtain on a rod next to your set. If you want to get fancy, you could build a frame out of PVC and tape the curtain to it.

Soft light from a steep angle can be really beautiful for still lifes.

CB

[Harold_4074]

Weathering of wood can be somewhat simulated with a wire brush wheel in an electric drill.

And it can be [I]really[I]] well simulated by using a propane torch and one or more wire brushes, alternately scorching and brushing until the grain depth is what you want. It works best with softwoods, particularly plantation-grown redwood or Douglas fir, because of the wide grain and large density difference between early and late season growth.

I have a tabletop still life background made that way out of scrap redwood fence boards, and a couple of other "set" pieces as well. The only examples that I have handy:

128899 128900

Sometime I'll have to try following up with bleach and something abrasive like sand or cleanser to see how close I can come to actual driftwood :)

[Daniel Stone]

A video I saw on Andreas Feininger comes to mind for something along these lines :) :


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXGua_YjiUg

[John Kasaian]

Weathering of wood can be somewhat simulated with a wire brush wheel in an electric drill.

And it can be [I]really[I]] well simulated by using a propane torch and one or more wire brushes, alternately scorching and brushing until the grain depth is what you want. It works best with softwoods, particularly plantation-grown redwood or Douglas fir, because of the wide grain and large density difference between early and late season growth.
Great! I've got scrap old redwood fence pickets handy. I'll give it a shot and see how it works. Thanks.
I have a tabletop still life background made that way out of scrap redwood fence boards, and a couple of other "set" pieces as well. The only examples that I have handy:

128899 128900

Sometime I'll have to try following up with bleach and something abrasive like sand or cleanser to see how close I can come to actual driftwood :)

[Christopher Barrett]

I wonder how well a bead blaster would simulate the drift wood effect...

Hmm...

[Harold_4074]

I wonder how well a bead blaster would simulate the drift wood effect...

Pretty well, based on my limited experience.

Sandblasting, however, is quite different; sharp particles have a cutting or gouging effect which is aggressive but leaves a lot of fuzz. Either would avoid the chief drawback of the torch-and-brush technique, the inevitable darkening by charcoal particles (which even bleach will not suppress). I suspect that the ultimate would be either bead or sand blasting, followed by a very soft, high-speed brush, and then a bleach to flatten the tonality. Of course, color work would be more demanding in this regard than black-and-white

[Mark Sampson]

John, this seems obvious, but look at the still-life work that Edward Weston did in the 1920s. No one's done it better. He used natural light (a sun porch) and muslin as a diffuser (among other things). The Phillips has one of his nautilus shell prints from 1927 on display right now, and I've lately had the chance to study it. Of course if you can find a way to see originals, that's best, but there are lots of good books out there these days too. Best of luck- I've never been brave enough to tackle the subject myself, but I'm sure you'll do a great job.

[Michael W]

A video I saw on Andreas Feininger comes to mind for something along these lines :) :


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXGua_YjiUg
Great video! I love Feininger and never thought to look for videos about him. Even the opening credits are cool with the animated view camera.

[Leszek Vogt]

Yes, do like the video. John, you could go to Morro Bay Shell Shop and you'll find tons of really cool and exotic shells....and you can play with it at home. Much like Jim suggested, I'd try it with small LED flashlight. You could pre-test it with a digi camera, if necessary.

Les

[John Kasaian]

Yes, do like the video. John, you could go to Morro Bay Shell Shop and you'll find tons of really cool and exotic shells....and you can play with it at home. Much like Jim suggested, I'd try it with small LED flashlight. You could pre-test it with a digi camera, if necessary.

Les
I actually got several specimens from the Morro Bay Shell Shop, as well as a Lion's Paw from a shop Santa Cruz and a Sea Horse from a San Diego shop.
Today I found an old mossy picket from a red wood fence and went over it real good with a steel brush. The grain came up nicely as the softer wood was brushed off.

[koh303]

I always thought there were no creatures in the dead sea:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Sea#Fauna_and_flora

[Roger Thoms]

Hey John, how this project going. Thought of you, I built a blind for my new solar array and wanted to make it a dark weathered gray. Yes I want to tone it, rather than paint or stain it. So with so black tea, vinegar, and steel wool I went from slightly weathered new wood to fairly dark grey in a mater of minutes. Basically soak the steel wool in the vinegar for a few days to create the solution. Tea is optional, but helps with wood that doesn't have a lot of tannic acid. Tea is applied prior to the vinegar/steel wool solution. The thing to do is test on scrape till you get the grey your looking for.

It was very cool, first I sprayed with tea, then the vinegar solution (iron(II) acetate) and within a minute or two, grey. It really remained me of toning a print in the darkroom.

Anyway, if you need to make some wood look weathered for your project this might help. Also keep in mind that any sanding or distressing should be done first. Also hydrogen gas is produce so leave the lid to the container loose so pressure won't build up.

Roger

[sun of sand]

Why is it that kickstarter for my enjoyment threads fill with disgust
Volunteer photographer jobs

But thread asking for this level of creative help is doing just fine

Fine
Whatever
Just don't ask me for or to forego money





At chimney bluffs NY there is a drift root ball and one root end looks exactly like a penis
Perhaps it was carved by some di but looked natural
Enough

Put that up in the beach house