I
had the opportunity to photograph metal artwork for an artist friend
who lives near Lynhurst Ontario. For those unfamiliar with this
little village, it is about 45 km north of Kingston Ont. along Hwy
15.
Noah,
the metal-sculpture artist, has a large manicured estate with a
man-made pond that is just perfect to have his animal based artworks
scattered all about. Almost like seeing a herd of deer in the fields.
In fact I did mange to see one deer at the edge of his lawns. But
having a couple of Noah’s dogs playing around me meant that I could
not get close enough to the deer for a great shot.
The
reflections on the screen worked to create great contrast with the
darker pond water, which meant I didn’t have to do much to have the
artwork stand out. Just moving about for greatest contrast. I cropped
the right wind since it's a mirror of the other and including it
would make it appear smaller.
Most
of his sculptures are made out of scrap metal parts and therefore,
for the most part, tend to have a dull rust color. Dark and mid-tone
oranges do not usually stand out well against bright green fields.
Even
the biker (bicycle and motorcycle) sculptures that have figures on
them have muted tones in their clothing. To make them stand out
better I desaturated the greens, as with the above example, to an
almost grey tone to give the figures more prominence. There are 5 of
these along the front near the road.
Some
artworks, like the bug series below, are painted, but even here we
still need to have darker background (hedge in shade) to give more
punch to the colors.
Even
in the above image with its strong yellow and reds, the green has
been slightly muted.
Most
of the bug pieces have long insect like legs but if you include the
whole art piece then the main body parts become very small in the
photo. Focus on the main sections but include just enough of other
parts to give context to photo.
For
some images I wanted the distortion created by a wide angle lens,
where objects nearer are larger and distant objects becomes smaller
than reality, to change the perspective in how we view the artwork.
I
had to use HDR on the photos where I was looking up and a bright sky
was behind the sculpture. In the above photo the rust is made more
vibrant and the green and blue colors muted a bit.
I
now know that I need to come back again when the sun is near the
evening horizon so that for some sculptures the shadows will add to
create a larger subject.
Who
couldn't love this old Flintstones type car.
Some
close-ups to focus on the texture of the artwork.
And
finally a photo for the biker in all of us.
And
here's the photo of the deer in the field.
Niels
Henriksen
