New Work Photographed for Black Cat Pottery

Another great opportunity was realized recently - photographing art for artists. I was able to collaborate with Cheryl English from Black Cat Pottery on the photography of her most recent work. A very dreary morning resolved to become a beautiful afternoon, with perfect light for photographing outdoors.


Cheryl's backyard garden has an amazing assortment of plants that she uses not only in her work but also in her research for speaking engagements on the many varieties of Clematis.

We were able to complete about eleven photographs of six different works before the light changed and our schedules demanded that we end the session. I wish you could see a large version of the photograph at left. There is a small cricket that sprang up onto the foreground leaf. It paused long enough for an exposure, then popped along on its way. I also like the tousled quality of the grass in the lawn; a perfectly-barbered sheet of sod would not have worked at all.

All were photographed with available light, sometimes with a white fill card to modify the shadows or highlights. Chasing the sun around on an early October afternoon kept us busy moving items about the garden. The quality of light as it was filtered though the trees was very nice.

I used my trusty wideangle zoom, as it allows me to get in close to the work. By choosing a lens that places the work within reach, it mimics the natural perspective that one feels when viewing them in person.

I recognized that the most important part of all this effort was the opportunity to share my interest in still life with other artists. The process of choosing the right works for the right location, then placing them to their best advantage took me back to the purest forms of still life photography that I enjoy most.

Being a conduit for communication is especially gratifying. Cheryl simply needed the photos to enter a juried show; the effort was more than necessary to show the judges 'what it looked like' and the result is a new group of photographs that she can use for many different promotional needs. The promising aspect of photography for me is its ability to become more than simply a record of something. When one sees more than the literal 'being' of something, its meaning can be modified, its impact can transformed and magnified.