News from Earth and Fire -- August 9, 2005
A picture is worth a thousand wordsI know I promised you teapots this week, but.. well.. life happens. (Besides that, I couldn't come up with a catchy title.)
What happened in my life this week was that I needed a "real" photograph of a pot here in the gallery to send off to Ceramics Monthly for a full-page ad in their October issue, which is their annual Gallery Guide issue.
Now, I have known that I'm not a potter for some time. I also know I'm not a photographer. Just how MUCH I'm not a photographer was brought home clearly to me on Saturday when Rex, a good customer at Earth and Fire who is an amateur professional photographer (or professional amateur, I'm not quite clear on when exactly the line is crossed...) showed up at the gallery to take a couple of images for me for the ad.
About the time Rex showed up, I got a call Jeff in California. Jeff was interested in some of the pieces I'd featured in the last couple of newsletters, and wanted to see some more images of them from different angles. So I figured as long as long as Rex was here and had everything set up, we could just kind of production-line some pots on through.
Since this was all set up on short notice, and Rex hasn't photographed a lot of inaminate objects, things were fairly low-tech for this. I had a piece of matte black fabric, and Rex had spray-painted a neutral background. But he also had a camera that put mine to shame big time.. and a tripod and some lights and a reflector thing. Rex definitely "looked the part."
First, a little recap of the photo I took:
I told you that the bottle on the right was one of my favorites, and how it looked all weathered and wonderful. Yeah.. pickles in the refrigerator. That's the one. That was one of the pots that Jeff was interested in seeing more of. I told Rex not to worry about taking the price tag off.. just shoot a couple of quick ones of all the sides. Here's what Rex came up with:
and:
(I think the price tag adds quite the touch in that one, don't you?)
As far as the images Rex took for the Ceramics Monthly ad:
This is a wood-fired box from Sam Taylor, Westhampton, MA. ($275) Since Sam's pots will be featured in the next show at Earth and Fire in October, it seemed reasonable that one of his pots be shown in the ad.
This is a "signature" form from Mark Shapiro. He calls them "clover jars". They have two, three or four lobes to them (this one has three - $400) and three or more "steps" moving up the side of the pot.
Another "signature" form from Mark -- the lighthouse jar. $650
By the end of the afternoon, I realized that I really need to do a better job of taking pictures. Slapping some pots up against the wall and snapping a quick one isn't going to cut it any longer. It's not going to happen immediately, and it'll probably never get to even the amateur professional status... but I'm going to try.
In the meantime, we'll get through the best we can. I'm working to try to get the website much more current, with images of actual pots that are here at the gallery. I'm starting with the potters for whom I have the fewest pots on hand.
This week, the artist pages that have been updated are:
Laura Ross (I received new work from her this week.)
Maren Kloppmann
Deb Steidel (Swauger)
Diana Thomas
Maybe we'll get around to the teapots next week. Anyone got any ideas for a title?
(Yes.. Jeff did buy the bottle.)
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