by Steve Meltzer

RESOURCES

Check out the National Association of Visual Merchandisers Web site (www.visualmerch.com) for more information about professional visual merchandisers. To order a copy of “Display for Profits” ($25 U.S. + S&H), contact Jackie George at (310) 548-9065 or by e-mail at: jackiegeorge36@hotmail.com.

Do Your Jury Slides Have What It Takes?
Part I of a Critique of Readers’ Jury Slide Submissions … with Practical Tips for Better Photos

The lights dim, the audience quiets and as the curtain rises, beams of light shoot forward piercing the gloom. It’s show time! And, for just seconds, all your jury slides are flashed onto a screen for your fate to be decided, as the French say, “un clinger des yeux” — in a blink of the eyes.

Whenever I’ve written about jury slides I’ve tried to make it clear that I believe strong photos are those that allow the work to shine through.
A few months ago, I invited craftspeople to send me their jury slides for a “critique.” The idea, of course, is not to evaluate the artwork, but to simply review the photos themselves. And I got some truly great jury slides — impressive in the high quality of both the work and the photos.

I’ve selected one image from each artist to illustrate both positive and negative slide attributes, and have made mention of separate technical issues, such as color, exposure and clarity, as well as how successfully the work is presented.

Don’t miss Part II of the Slide Evaluation next month.

Most of the photos I received were duplicate slides. When you shoot a roll of slide film, the film is processed and each image is cut from the filmstrip and mounted in a cardboard or plastic frame. Original slides are the film that went through the camera, duplicate slides are photographs of those photographs. While making duplicates allows you to have lots of images to send out, the quality of duplicates is all over the map. The best — and usually the most expensive — produce images almost identical in color and sharpness as the original photo. Your chances of getting quality duplicates are greater through professional photo labs than your local, one-hour film developer.

The images I got represented this broad range of duplicate quality, and since these are the same images sent to shows, it is a fair representation of what jurors actually see

 

Pin by Henny Iliescu. Sharp images can get lostin a sea of gray Jeweler Henny Iliescu’s pin is typical of the images she sent. Like the rest of her images, it is sharp and correctly exposed, and the work fills the frame, but I’ve got a problem with the background. It is a gray that doesn’t add anything to the image, and it appears to be contaminated with a pink tinge. The light gray is very flat. Iliescu works with colored stones and metals, but this gray background drains color out of the subject. Of the eight slides she sent, all had slightly different gray backgrounds ranging from deep gray to almost white. This means that the backgrounds are fighting each other for attention in a jury set. Choosing the right pieces to photograph is also important. Several of the pieces in the slides Iliescu sent were made with dark stones, but these don’t photograph as well as the more brightly colored pieces.

Blown glass vase by Leslie Moody. Beautiful pieces can lose texture without the proper focus Leslie Moody’s blown glass vase is lovely, and I like the way the photo conveys the translucency of the work. That’s hard to do, but it is absolutely necessary for great glass photos. But I still have two problems with this image. First, there is a depth-of-field issue. The front surface of the vase is out of focus. Not only do we lose sharpness, but we also lose surface texture. Is this smooth glass matte or glossy? … The slide doesn’t tell us. With round, three-dimensional objects, you need to shoot at the smallest aperture you can — f/16 or f/22. And, again, there is the problem of shooting a dark subject on a light background. The top of the image, particularly, is hotter or brighter than the rest and pulls our eyes off the subject. In this situation, Moody might consider using a spotlight to throw a circle of light behind the vase to provide light for translucency, while allowing the top of the background to be darker.

“A Buccaneer’s Box,” by Gina Harris. When you need to lighten up This “Buccaneer’s Box” by Gina Harris illustrates the problem of using a background that is too dark. The box seems to be falling into the black background. This is a subject that could be photographed with a large light box hung over the work and with a little lighter background.

Circus horse by Frank Colson. Let bold colors pop! Sarasota is my hometown, and one of the things I love about it is its strong circus tradition. This was the place where the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus spent their winters, and we still have a vibrant circus community. Local artist Frank Colson makes delightful circus horses, but his slides don’t do them justice — it’s a lighting issue. For example, the two lights used to photograph this circus horse not only create multiple distracting shadows, but the lighting is dark and murky, lacking pop and snap. The wonderful colors of the horses — the gold and the red — are lost. Every other slide was on a different color background, none of which gave the work the liveliness a circus horse demands. This is another situation in which a strong overhead light — something in a light box — would really help.

Pin by Anna and Costas Costinos. Neatness counts Clearly, backgrounds and lighting are issues for everyone. Anna Costinos photographs the jewelry she and her husband, Costas, produce and notes that she spends hours photographing the work hoping to get a few good slides. The pin shown here is typical of the slides she sent. At first glance, it looks OK, with bright colors popping out of the dark background. Each of the four slides Anna sent, however, had dark but different colored backgrounds. Some were black, and some gray. The big problem here is that not all of the images were consistently sharp — another depth-of-field problem. Not only do you need a deep depth of field with three-dimensional objects, like vases, but you also have to use it when you’re very close to small work. F/16 helps a lot, as you can see in this image, which is the sharpest of the group. The lighting has enough angle to give texture to the jewelry, but the background appears to be dirty. There are spots and dust on it … points off for mess. But compare the way the darker background works in this image, as opposed to the one by Iliescu. While Costinos’ pin pops, Iliescu’s recedes and is lost.

Beadwork by Ileana Munteanu. Photo by Ralph Gabriner Lighting made simple Light plays an important part in every photograph. Beadworker Ileana Munteanu’s photo, which was shot by a professional photographer, shows how a single light over a piece can spotlight it and separate it from the background. Here the beaded box pops off the photo. The top edge of the box is framed in darkness, the bottom framed by light and a little shadow. Compare this to Harris’ Buccaneer’s Box (page 37, top) and see how much stronger it is.

Handmade book by Amy Lapidow. When it all comes together As you can see from these images and their backgrounds, overall consistency and lighting are critical factors in jury slides. Look at the photo of the handmade book by Amy Lapidow and her use of a graduated background. It really strengthens the presentation. In three of the four slides of her submission, there is a single book, while the fourth photo shows several books. All are on this graduated background and similarly lit. The four images make a strong and coherent group. The background focuses our attention. The darker top of the background holds the book in place and keeps our eyes from floating up off the image. And, I love the way the lighting works, giving the top of the book a bright, hot edge that separates it from the background.