Friday, March 2, 2012

Treasure Box Series I (Part D)



I am not sure about digital photography. Just not sure. I do not trust something that can be manipulated so easily. So, anyway, I paid a photographer, with a lot of expensive equipment, to take a picture of the box. I will post it here.

However, since it is made of exactly the same materials and has the same finish as the jewel box at the masthead of this post, why does it look different? Trust me, I will find out what is wrong with this picture and repost it as soon as I can get it right.

In the meantime, here is a shot of the outside and inside of the finished box. Enjoy.

Remember, I have three more just like it...

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Patrick,
Great looking box, it's nice the see the finished piece since I got lucky and saw it early on in the building process. I really like the pattern on the inside of the lid.
Craig Thibodeau

Anonymous said...

If you use two identical cameras under the exact same lighting conditions and do the post processing in the same (calibrated)program on the same computer and then view them on the same (calibrated) monitor they will look very similar.

Different camera than the guy standing next to you and your can forget about matching the color.

W. Patrick Edwards said...

Thank you. Check out the new post with the same photo manipulated by one of my good friends.

Anonymous said...

I'm a professional photographer in SF, specializing in studio still life since 1988.

A couple questions. Is the box on the masthead shot on a neutral gray background? Are the feet and pulls white or close to white in real life? When I take the masthead photo into Photoshop and read the numbers, they are way off of being neutral.
The background in the photo on this entry has a much more neutral cast to it and I would assume the box is much closer to reality than the one in the masthead.
SFPaul

W. Patrick Edwards said...

The box in the mast head is essentially identical to the treasure box, in woods and finish.

The jewel box was photographed on a grey background with many studio lights and flash, using a large format camera with small lens opening and long exposure (about 30 seconds). The ebony is flat black and the feet are ivory and almost pure white.

The treasure box was photographed on a white background, using a small format camera (35mm) with a digital lens/computer setup. No flash was used; only a few studio lights. The lens opening was small but the exposure time was very short.

As the maker of both, I can say the colors in the masthead jewel box is correct.

Anonymous said...

All I'm saying is if you read the numbers on the masthead photo I'm getting for the righthand foot Red..237, Green...218 and Blue...183. A white would be very close to having all the numbers match. To me the feet look reddish, not whitish.
And the ebony if it were black, it would also have their numbers be close. In the photo both Red and Green read close but Blue is quite a bit under.
Our eyes are not to be trusted. If we look at a white piece of paper in tungsten light and also in shade light we say they look the same but that's our eye tricking or compensating us.
I have no dog in this fight, just saying what it looks like to me.
And like I say to my clients, "You like that color? Let's go with that color".

W. Patrick Edwards said...

Thank you for your critical analysis. I appreciate your insight.

I understand the effect of different lights, and I used to understand the different film emulsions and filters that I used over the years. That is all history.

I guess I am just sentimental for the "old days" when the photo represented what I saw when I took the picture.

If it didn't, I would blame the film developer...

Alan Ong said...

Hey hi nice work there really love them. may i ask how do you actually color those inlays?

W. Patrick Edwards said...

All the woods I use are natural colors except for the green color. I purchase green tinted sawn veneer from Patrick George in Paris. They use maple or hornbeam or holly or poplar or lacewood, ash or oak, even pear. Tints used for these colors are often kept secret but are common fabric tints. It is not easy to tint your own woods. These woods are always tinted before cutting.
In these boxes only the green are tinted. The black is Gaboon ebony.

Alan Ong said...

Hey hi Mr Edwards so sorry for my late reply. I really appreciate it cheers. :D