Transcript
PART 1 – Photographing a garment on a mannequin
Nitsa Yioupros:
Hello. My name is Nitsa Yioupros, conservation photographer at the Powerhouse Museum. I would like to talk to you today about photographing your garments in situ in a museum environment. This room here has normal, bulb lighting, which is tungsten lighting. When you're in your museum, you would need to find a space that has a good flood of light before you begin photographing. We have chosen this space because this space not only has a good flood of light, but there are not too many objects on the floors as well.
There are things on the walls, which I will show you how you'll be able to cover those temporarily using masking tape, which doesn't harm the paintwork on the wall.
So, as you can see, we're just covering the framed photographs on the wall, and draping the fabric onto the floor, using a clean, white sheet, or grey, preferably, if you can find that.
Once you've done that, as you can see, that's covering what's on the wall, then you can position your fabric. This piece of fabric is not too long. I mean, you can have a piece that comes out along the floor a bit longer as well. It's a bit more ideal for bigger gowns with big skirts.
Just place the garment, like so. OK. I want to demonstrate using a reflector board. All you need to get is a white, foam-core board, or cardboard, which you can perhaps buy at a stationery store.
You can get very fancy photographic reflectors. However, a white board does the same job. The idea of a reflector board is that you have it close to the object, like so, and the idea is that the light from the ceiling will fall onto the white board and then bounce back onto the garment. It's probably more evident with black or dark-coloured garments. Even placing it against the tripod, like so, will help you get light bounce back onto the garment.
Now, what I'm going to do is photograph this on auto, to begin with.
[snapping sound]
Nitsa:
Ah. Now, see, I had the flash on. In a situation where the light is terrible, you can use a flash, but I highly recommend that you don't, if you can help it.
Kate Chidlow:
Why is that, Nitsa?
Nitsa:
Well, flash tends to, particularly a flash on camera, it tends to give you sort of a highlight ‘spot’ on the centre of the garment. It's like a glaring, washed-out sort of point of the garment, or any object, for that matter. When we use proper photographic studio lights, we have soft boxes on the flash and the light's very controlled. But usually, with flash on a camera, you'll end up getting those little hot spots. You can get away with it with textiles. However, with some fabrics, particularly those satins and things, you'll definitely get the hot spots, and so make sure that the flash is switched off.
We'll just shoot that again. Kate, could you please step away from the garment because it does interfere with the light falling on the garment.
[snapping sound]
Nitsa:
OK. When you are going to adjust the exposure, you need to learn how to photograph with the camera on manual. I'll put the camera on manual. You need to get a good depth of field. What that means is you need to get a good focusing range. So I recommend that you put the F-stop on your camera as high as it can go, because that'll give you a good depth of focus. Then you can adjust the speed, whether it be a slower shutter, to allow more light in, or a quick shutter, which will allow less light to fall onto the image plane. This camera goes to F8, and that is its maximum. And then you have to adjust with the shutter speed to get the right exposure. So I'm just doing that now.
When you work with manual, you can check the little image viewer at the back of your camera; you'll be able to see – it actually shows you how light or dark it is going. So if you just choose the exposure that is slightly darker, you'll pick up all those details that I was talking about.
[snapping sound]
Nitsa:
OK. Let's check that. [beeping sounds] I'm just checking now. Yes, and that's picked up the details quite nicely, just by slightly darkening the image. I am going to use that reflector board, Kate, thanks, because that will let me just pick up a little bit more light on the hem of the garment.
Kate:
Like this?
Nitsa:
Yeah, I think that’s right. And I'll just re-shoot that. [snapping sound] I don't know if you can hear that, but the shutter speed was fairly slow, because I had the F-stop, for the focusing plane, at F8, and I have to have a slower shutter speed to allow more light to enter the image plane. I'm just going to zoom in now. This dress has some beautiful embroidered detail. Is that embroidered, Kate?
Kate:
Yeah, it is.
Nitsa:
Yeah, on the sort of lower part of the skirt. So, it's always a nice thing to do, if you've got some lovely details like that, just to do one or two shots of a close-up shot of that. [beeping sounds]
[snapping sound]
Nitsa:
OK, that's looking good. And one thing just to remember, in terms of the aperture and shutter speed, if you can visualise the human eye and your pupil, when there's a lot of light, the pupil becomes smaller in the human eye. And of course, in a dark environment, your pupil dilates to allow more light in. So this is how the aperture works in a camera. It's sort of based on the human eye. So, when you have the smaller hole, which is the higher numbers on the diaphragm of the camera, which is the f-stops. So the higher the number, the smaller the hole. Like F/16 is of course, a smaller hole than F/5.6 for instance.
Kate:
You've got a close-up of the detail and you do it for damage as well. Would you have a close-up for various damage?
Nitsa:
That's a good point. And also as Kate mentions, for damage. It’s important to document staining or damage on an outfit by taking a close-up of that staining or damage. So Kate is just turning the gown around and we're going to do another shot of the side to show the sleeves.
Kate:
Is that the right angle? This hasn't got a bustle but I guess it's quite good to show the bustle when you're doing the side views.
Nitsa:
Yes.
Kate:
You do all four sides?
Nitsa:
I normally do. I do the front, two sides and the back and any details that are required.
Kate:
This mannequin, I don't want to do this [upper bodice fastener] up because it's a little bit tight.
Nitsa:
Yeah. We better slide it to the left, the whole thing.
Kate:
Towards me?
Nitsa:
Yes, thank you. Is that possible? Yes, that's great. Yeah as you can see, the mannequin is a little bit too broad shouldered for this particular gown. OK. Let's just check that. [beep sounds] Yeah and we'll just do the last, the whole thing.
So, as I mentioned to you before, every camera has its unique dials and buttons and so on and so forth. But if you read your manual it will tell you how to work in the manual mode so that you can adjust your f-stop and shutter speed. In our case, we will be underexposing for a white garment.
OK looks great. And also, don't be concerned if you're seeing the edges of the corflute or board. Most camera imaging software that comes with the camera that you buy comes with basic cropping software. So you can crop things on the computer. So if there is anything that shows up on the image, you can crop it neatly.
It's good to get in as tight as possible. But of course, you can only go as far as the head or the top of the gown and the base of the gown. You can crop anything off the sides once the image is on the computer.
PART 2 – Photographing a garment on a slope board
Kate and I are demonstrating how to photograph on a slanted board for garments that are too fragile to be put or dressed on a mannequin. And you can photograph skirts, bodices, any kind of garments at all that are fragile, that need to be laid out flat.
So we're using two folded up trestle tables together. And, as you can see, there's two chairs supporting them, like so.
The museum unfortunately here didn't have a complete piece of board. I think it's probably much better to have a board made up. It doesn't have to be a really heavy thing.
Kate:
Just corflute would do.
Nitsa:
Yeah. Corflute is great, actually. A board made up specifically for these sorts of shoots.
Kate:
So it can't be too sloped can it, because otherwise the gown will fall off.
Nitsa:
That's right, exactly. You need to have it a point where it's not going to sort of slip off. So as you can see, we're putting the grey sheet, whatever you have, over the two tables. And as I mentioned, preferably the one piece of board is more ideal. But this can work as well. Kate is now going to get a black little bodice top and put it down. Just spread it out as much as you can…. I should have some gloves to help you, Kate.
Kate:
I'll do it.
Nitsa:
Thank you.
Kate:
So I can actually put a bit of tissue paper in there to fill it up.
Nitsa:
You can do that, yes. If you want to bring the shape of the gown up, it would be better. And try and just centre the piece as much as you can.
Kate:
Of course hiding the tissue. Ah, it's got one of those waistbands. Where would you like that?
Nitsa:
Just down like that. That's showing that. OK and while Kate is doing that, I'm going to get organised at this end. Now again, we've placed the slope board in the same area where the flood of light seems to be – the best spot in this area.
Kate:
Can you see that tissue paper?
Nitsa:
No that's great. OK. Now I'd like to just suggest also, at this point, that you get as high up as you can to get over the object, so you don't have foreshortening. So that you're more above it looking down – you're not getting any distortions, as much as possible. I know in some cases that can get a bit tricky, and you might need to use a ladder, but do take care. When you're stepping on ladder, wear flat shoes. And have someone to hold the ladder for you if you need to get above.
However, having said that, when you're photographing black you won't be able to hand hold your camera because the technique I'm going to use now, again, is using the camera on manual mode.
But it will be, in this case, the opposite to white, I'll be overexposing the black to show more of the detail of the black. The first thing I'll do is an auto shot, and without flash.
OK. And now what I will do is slightly overexposing it, by turning the camera to manual to show you the difference in detail. But it's sort of trial and error. What you're going to have to do is bracket your shots. Sometimes take a normal shot, and then take one stop overexposed, and then two stops overexposed. Then see how each image looks on the computer screen, once you've got them up, see which looks best to your eye and then select that one.
Kate:
I guess that's the beauty of digital photography.
Nitsa:
Yes.
Kate:
You can take lots of photos.
Nitsa:
That's right, without having to run out of film or changing rolls. Particularly, of course, the cards that you buy, if you get a card that carries a lot of images, like one gigabyte or two gigabytes cards, you'll be able to carry a lot of the images on the one card. The little [beeping sounds] beeps you're hearing is just me checking the image. [beeping sounds] Yeah, so I've slightly overexposed the garment now, which brings out all the details. Otherwise, you'll see the difference with the auto shot, it'll be just a black mass with no detail. [beeping sounds]
Nitsa:
OK, so we can do the back now. And the other thing that we do is the inside of the bodice, showing, in a lot of cases, the boning in the bodice. Sometimes the linings will be in a very poor state, so they need to be documented as well.
Kate:
And also the manufacturer's labels.
Nitsa:
Yes, that's right. Details of that can be made as well. So the great thing here is once you've got the exposure right, it's set, and you can just continue shooting the insides or backs, and you'll know that you're happy with the exposure that you've selected. OK, so now we do the back. [beeping sounds]
Kate:
Do you still want that done like that [leave the waistband exposed], Nitsa, or put it back in?
Nitsa:
Yeah, I guess probably, because we've documented that now, it's probably good to hide that. It makes it look a bit nicer. [beeping sounds]
Kate:
Is that the right position?
Nitsa:
That’s great. Thank you. Sometimes it can be a little bit tricky. As you can see, this garment has a white lace trim on the sleeves, so be mindful not to overexpose a black garment too much, so that the beige parts become washed out. So you have to find a happy medium with that by adjusting the exposure.
So Kate's helping me now to photograph the skirt.
Kate:
We're doing the front?
Nitsa:
Yeah, do the front first. And if you end up unfolding it and the back comes up first, well, that's OK. You just do the back first, so saves you handling the object too much. I'm just now photographing the skirt. Sometimes when you're photographing an area which is sort of a black mass, or white for that matter, and there's not much texture or definition, the auto-focusing cameras have trouble focusing, unless you're manually focusing.
However, to alleviate that problem, just get your grey card, or just a bit of cardboard, clean cardboard like this. And just place it onto the garment in the centre and then the garment will have something with an edge on it to focus. When I've done that, I'll get Kate to remove the card... You depress the button, the shutter release, half-way down to focus. I need to lower it. Just lower it. Thanks, Kate.
OK, and then, Kate, could you remove that? It's focused. Then, I continue shooting, and then you'll know that you've got everything nicely focused. OK, so we'll now do the back of the garment. I'm going to put some gloves on. It's always good to have help, particularly with fragile garments, and when you're using a slope board.
Kate:
I'm trying to get it from seam-to-seam. I think that's it. Is that from seam-to-seam? Yeah.
Nitsa:
Is it? Yeah, it is. [silence with picture-taking noises]
Nitsa:
OK, so I'll just use the same method with a little grey card. OK, thank you. [silence]
Nitsa:
Thanks, Kate. OK, that's great. Thank you.
Transcription by CastingWords