Bill Snyder specializes in astrophotography He was an emerging artist at the Three Rivers Arts Festival last month. I mentored him through preparing and then doing the show. He was bitten by the art show bug and within a few weeks, purchased a used set of Pro Panels and a used Light Dome. He brought it all to my house the other day and set up for me to do a booth picture.
In post processing, I replaced all the images in the framed pictures on the back wall to eliminate reflections. The carpet instead of gravel was the finishing touch for a really clean booth picture.
He's now applying to more shows.
Larry Berman
http://BermanGraphics.com
412-401-8100
Replies
Yes, there is a creeping professionalization of jury images, and that is driven by the increasing numbers of people wanting to get in the game. Photography, as I'm sure you're aware, is particularly hard hit by the swarms of newcomers that make it an overloaded category with 10 to 15 applicants for each available spot. Sometimes the differentiation is who has the prettier booth. As an aside on this, astrophotography is an entirely different skill set and has much in common with product photography as watercolor work :-)
If I get enough new work done, I'll be doing a new set of booth images in mid August. Given what I've seen, it promises to be an interesting experience.
Hi Leo,
Interesting in that the only thing actually changed in the picture (besides adding the carpet which was necessary because of the gravel with grass coming through) is changing the two small gold frames to black to match all the other frames. And that's because he's no longer using anything but those black frames.
As far as changing the lighting, it's not true. I always expose so the light areas are properly exposed and then open the shadows when shooting against my house when the sun is overhead. You can see that in the white canopy top.
None of the pictures were changed. They were taken from the same files the prints were made from and dropped into the frames exactly like they would have looked if the frames didn't have glass.
As for the how to on the images, I know Bill belongs to some astronomy groups in Western PA and has access to the largest telescopes in the area. But you'll have to ask him how the images were taken.
Larry Berman
However, my issue is not these nit-picks about your images, it is the rapid evolution to glitzy images for jurying that get accomplished in post-process editing. I believe you have done your business well in these before and afters. We will soon need to hire BBDO.
The difference in the replacement pictures is that you can't see the row of cars which are parked directly opposite the booth about fifteen feet away. We have extra space on our property and we let the nursing home next door use it for overflow parking in exchange for them plowing all winter long. Everything I've done in post was planned out in advance.
Larry Berman
Larry,
I am new at this and I am just don't understand why jury's want booth photos when through software like photoshop the booth photo submitted looks nothing like what your actual booth is going to look like. At what point is their to much photoshop enhancements. It all seems so fake. I know to you photographers it about making the picture perfect but the purpose here is not about selling a photograph.
If you would have walked the Three Rivers Art Festival, you would have seen that Bill's booth looked exactly like the picture you're looking at here.
I've been writing about this for years. The booth picture needs to be representative of what it looks like at the show. The point of this is that you don't want the jurors spending time evaluating the booth image. You want them to glance at it and dismiss it as being professional in as short a time as possible so they can concentrate on your individual art images. You don't want the booth to be the cause of you not getting into a show.
Larry Berman
http://BermanGraphics.com
412-401-8100
I understand that you want it to look good, just like you want the picture's of your art work to look good. But adding and subtracting objects (like adding carpet, removing tables and table cloths, etc, etc) when your actual boot at the show will be different does not seem right. I am probably wrong on this but I guess I just don't like things that are fake.
The booth shot looks great. His work looks very intriguing, too.
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