1000+ Ancient Coins
1000+ Ancient Coins is my second “move-in” project this summer. I spent 3 and a half weeks at the Yale Art Gallery’s Coins and Medals Department creating obverse and reverse images of two collection segments and other greatest hits to fill out a total count of about 1050 coins. Phew. Thanks to William Metcalf, curator and especially Jane Miller, museum assistant, for all their assistance getting me through.
Images were captured with the relatively simple setup as seen below in the production still gallery. The coins photographed varied from about 4cm to .5cm in diameter. Print size (aka indication of image resolution) from my captures was on average over 16cm. Obverse and reverse images were combined into one final image with a reference scale. Varying amounts of extension were required from about 56mm to over 200mm. As can be imagined depth of field was nearly non-existent and so for many of the smaller coins a post production technique called focus stacking was employed to get sharp images of lumpy objects.
 Macro Setup |
 Viewfinder |
 Tiny Coin |
 Tiny Coin 2 |
 Mobile Setup |
 Gold Coin |
Update: Check out the project page I made for the 1000+ coins where you can see some zoomed details, project specs and a wall of coins.
Swid Powell Collection
I have two “move-in” location projects this summer. This is the first. I spent two weeks wedged (in the most comfortable way) into a small studio, photographing 80+ objects from the Yale University Art Gallery’s Swid Powell collection for general museum use and in preparation of a planned symposium in the fall. You can find out more about Swid Powell here, as explained from a 2007 exhibition. The collection includes objects designed by including Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Stephen Holl, Richard Meier, Robert A. M. Stern, Stanley Tigerman, and Robert Venturi, among others. The symposium is to be held November 12-13, 2009 at the Yale School of Architecture.
Thanks so much to John Stuart Gordon for having me and all the effort polishing all the silver. The project was a pleasure.
 Capture Screen |
 Object with shrouded lens |
This nutty piece was shot with two different light set ups and pieced together to remove highlights on the green glass vase (as seen in single capture on monitor above), but keep some additional light on the large metal gold bowl.
 Finished Image |
I could post many neat looking design objects like Steven Holl’s Oil Can creamers or the Tigerman building tea service. Maybe I’ll post a link with a special Swid Powell gallery if I get a chance. UPDATE: Link to gallery of Swid Powell objects.
Anyway, keeping with the behind the scenes theme, there were many a single plate (charger) to photograph. My secret thanks goes to Tony DeCamillo, a staff photographer at YUAG for a perfect plate back drop. Plates were photographed safely on their back and then dropped into the background. Oh my god, this made blazing through about 40 plates a breeze.
 Behind the Curtain |
 Mappelthorpe design, finished image |
Chris
Early European Paintings
Just got back from two days in NYC photographing beautiful early European paintings. Images will be for exhibit catalogue and promotion next year at Yale Univ. Art Gallery.
Early European paintings
Thanks to the collector for letting me into their home and especially John for handling all the art and Linsey from the Art Gallery.
Yale: Kroon Hall 1
I had the pleasure of photographing at Yale’s new Kroon Hall last week. Photographed inside and out. Here are a couple site views. I’ll post some finished views in a day or two and I’m sure they will appear in the portfolio area here as well. Thanks to Dominic of the facilities staff (a green building takes more effort to keep lights on at night!) and David DeFusco for letting in one more photographer!
 Kroon Hall : front, daytime |
 Kroon Hall : side, daytime |
Chris
Nail in the Coffin – New Haven, CT
Okay, this is it. Grand views of New Haven, CT. Also for Yale Alumni Magazine. Something should be on the cover, but not sure what. Everything I photographed can be seen here in a little slideshow.
 New Haven, CT at night |
 NH Panorama |
Chris
SSD Raid Laptop
Okay, close your eyes faint of heart, maybe clients too.
This is that little 12″ laptop hanging off my tripod from an earlier post on the Cambo RS.
The day I can afford a P45+ or 65+ and go untethered maybe I will, but I might always want to review images on a larger screen. If Phaseone came out with an iPhone app for image review well maybe then…
Anyway, what you see below is a dual SSD (solid state drive) installation in a 12″ Powerbook G4. Aside from being small there is a whole long story about firewire port voltage in newer Mac laptops, I’ll spare you. These are not the world’s top SSDs (ie intel x-18e’s), but they are raided up for speed in raid 0. And should insulate me some from a ‘movement’ incident with rotating drives. Those that understand this and are shaking heads, yes I carry a bus powered clone I can boot and work form if the raid flakes on me. Each shot set also gets quickly backed up to a usb stick around my neck (the new photographer’s loop!).
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The second SSD is installed in place of the optical drive with an “Optibay” adapter from a company called MCEtech.
Hangin off A+A building, NH
I didn’t make enough production views of recent New Haven project for theYale Alumni Magazine, but this is maybe about as exciting from behind the scenes as it got anyway. Nothing like setting $15,000+ worth of gear an inch from a six story drop. At least one of the images will be used in the issue (should be May/June, I believe).
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 Wall Edge |
 Finished Image 1 |
 Wall Edge Evening |
 Finished Image 2 |
Cambo RS mobile rig.
So I’ve completed my transition to high-end medium format digital capture for architecture. I’ve been using a Cambo DS wide camera, originally with 4×5 film, and then some digital for a while now. But for wide lenses I was pushed into using the Canon 5D with PC lenses for architecture until now! I made the jump for new digital specific Schneider lenses and the super compact Cambo RS. Aside from everything fitting in the small backpack you see below, the RS has xy shift all on the camera back. Unlike the Cambo DS now I can stitch vertically and horizontally. I am really happy with the setup. It is light, fast, and accurate.
Please overlook the mess of firewire cable. Doing some backyard testing I just grabbed by studio cable. I carry both, but a short 3ft. cable is perfect.
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CG
Chapel and State – "Becker Building Site"
Walking around, what angle, scouting shots. Well how about up there from that window? This is a setup and shot for a Yale Alumni Magazine issue on New Haven.
Thanks to the staff at the Odonnell Company for lending me their view (esp. Jess Smith). You can see the final image and some of the before post parts here.
Round top window’s the port hole on this one.
Flat Work on Location
This is an ad hoc setup photographing prints in a Brooklyn print dealer’s space. A little down and dirty (keeping true to my subtitle up there: “How the Sausage Get’s Made”), but effective. With the aim of making good images, getting the job done on location, and keeping a reasonable budget this works. Hold your tongue, I’ve photographed thousand+ year old Chinese hand scrolls with a similar variant. That time it was strobe (keep ‘em cool) and a 4×5 film camera.
Type of prints photographed:
