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Wood and photographing

One thing that is very, very important when taking pictures of artworks, is the background. This surfaced when I was trying out different ideas for the design of a website gallery of my father's wood sculpture and other woodwork (http://nik-sergeev.com/). The difference between professional-looking photos of wooden articles, and ordinary photographs, is the background (and the lighting, which is the other important thing). For professional photographs, the background is almost never textured. It is either a plain colour (white, dark grey, tinted grey), or a receding gradient (lighter closer, and darker further away), that covers the entire area of the picture that is not the timber vessel or sculpture being photographed. The shadows are visible, which adds to the depth and shape of the object. But the shadows are very soft. The background is never just white or a pitch black - without the shadows, the scene would look flat.

These backgrounds are not easy to set up. There must be no surface markings of any kind, or any texture visible. When looking at good photographs, the background disappears, because there are no features on it for the eye to look at. Only when trying to take photos like that, do you realise the challenge - making a completely plain surface is not easy. You need large sheets of matte paper or similar type material.