Tips for Photographing Outdoor Sculpture
The following tip on photographing outdoor sculpture was submitted by Dianne Durante from Forgotten Delights.
For my website, www.ForgottenDelights.com, I’ve taken thousands of photos of outdoor sculptures in Manhattan - a tough job given the erratic weather, extreme congestion, and a recent ruling restricting use of tripods in public places. The following techniques have helped me greatly improve my photos over the past years, and should help you take great photos of outdoor sculpture wherever you happen to be.
1. Wait out the weather - Overcast skies are the best: no camera can cope with the extreme contrasts of light and shadow that the sun makes on polished bronze or bright white marble. [See photos of the Washington Arch and Ericsson at Battery Park.] If it’s a sunny day, try looking for a sculpture that’s completely in shadow, not merely dappled shade. That may mean shooting in the afternoon rather than the morning, or vice versa, or waiting until a neighboring building conveniently casts a shadow over the sculpture.
2. Look first - Getting a good angle on a sculptured face is just as important as getting a good angle when taking a formal portrait of a live person. Walk all around the sculpture and figure out the most interesting angles before you look through the viewfinder and get side-tracked by apertures and exposures. Usually the most interesting angle for a face will be a profile view or a 3/4 view, rather than a full-frontal mug shot. But perhaps you’ll find you want to look at a skyscraper over the sculpture’s shoulder, or focus on one detail.
3. Zoom - Many sculptures are on pedestals, so if you stand close to them to shoot, your photo will be filled with legs and feet. To compensate, back up as much as you can (without backing into the street!) and use your optical zoom to fill the frame. If possible, stand on a bench or a slight hill - anything that brings your eye level closer to that of the sculpture.
4. Background Check - Look methodically for distractions. In New York, the most frequent offenders are street signs, pigeons, and tree branches. [See William Earl Dodge in Bryant Park.] Consider the texture as well as the shape and color of objects behind the sculptures: a shiny face may disappear against a mirrored background. [See Jackie Gleason / Ralph Kramden.] Shift your position to remove as many distractions as possible.
5. Spot metering (Center-weighted metering) - Once you’ve found a good angle and distance, set your camera to meter the light only at the center of the frame. Aim the center mark on your viewfinder at a big, sold chunk of statue such as the torso; the sky behind the statue may fade almost to white. Press the shutter halfway down to hold the setting and shift your camera back to pointing at the treeless, pigeonless, signless image you composed before. If this doesn’t get you an image with good detail, trying using the exposure bracketing function (still center-weighted), if your camera has one. [See Lincoln at Union Square, with normal vs. center-weighted metering.]
6. Simplify, simplify, simplify - If there are too many distractions around a particular sculpture, you may have to settle for several close-up shots rather than one photo of the whole sculpture. Try a different view of the face, face and torso, hands, or supporting elements. Also experiment with shooting in B&W or sepia tone: a “no parking” sign is often less offensive if it’s not red. [See Lincoln at Union Square.]
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Great information and tips for taking sculptures. I’ve not taken them before, but this article makes me want to!
Thanks
Great article! Thanks for the tips…
I actually took my very first attempt on shooting sculptures earlier this year and posted some photos to my blog here:
http://www.amatterofmemories.com/2007/10/qwest-center-omaha.html
I would love some constructive criticism from anyone willing to offer it…
I totally broke rule #1 here as it was a very sunny day, but since these statues had a metallic sheen to them, I actually felt this added to their look of ‘drama’. What do you think?
This is one of the first posts here I really don’t get - the one sculpture picture looks awful to my eyes, with a distractingly bleached background and blown highlights left, right and centre. I’d understand if the statue was correctly exposed but it’s clearly overexposed too.
Surely this kind of scenario would call for a set-up involving a bit of off-camera flash, and an exposure more suited to the background?
I agree about the picture not being the greatest but the tips still stand as good advice. Distractions in the background have often been a problem for me when shooting statues and I have learned to look around before clicking.
Jill I love your blog and your photos, amazing! I have never wanted to go to omaha but now I do, those figures look great!! Good job I think the sun looks nice too.
In addition to the obvious overexposure, the tree behind the statue seems to be a distraction. It’s all well and hood when the tip’s ‘make sense’ but people are not likely to listen or pay attention if the first example of the application of them is poor.
Theses are great tips, but I found the hyper links annoying. For example “See Lincoln at Union Square, with normal vs. center-weighted metering” didn’t take me to the expected sample photo, just took me to an Amazon book on Union Square.
The photos referred to in my Tips (above) can be seen at http://www.forgottendelights.com/essay/DigitalPhotographySchoolPhotos.htm.
Thanks for the kind comments about my blog and photos, Abby!! Much appreciated!
As the author of the Tips above, I’d like to point out that this is an article on photographing *sculpture*. While the building behind Hale happens to be one of my favorites in Manhattan, it would be distracting if it appeared in its real deep-red color. The article’s also about “working around” problems of photographing in a city, and as I mentioned, trees are a big problem. I do my best to minimize their presence, unless trees are what I’m after.
On the other hand, it occurs to me that I should perhaps have converted the Hale to B&W for the DPS post - that’s how it was published in my book on outdoor sculpture, in accordance with Tip #6 (simplify) and with the publisher’s adamant refusal, for practical reasons, to print the photos in color on glossy paper. (Sigh.) I’ve converted the photo to B&W and uploaded it to the page on my website mentioned in one of the comments above. The shades of gray of the sculpture against the much fainter and fuzzier trees and building are to my eye very satisfying. (You’re allowed to disagree, of course!)
That link to the B&W is not working for me (got 404, not found). I was interested to see if the conversion helped with the over exposure.
It’s me again. I went through the link in the email I got about your comment and that worked. I think the Black and white version is much better.
All rules are only guidlines. In answer to your article I would say:
1.) I have taken many photos of sculpture in full sun. To say “Wait out the weather” is nothing more than taking an easy way out. Lacking creativity would follow this advice.
Wait until the subject is shrouded in shadow? Sun glisten-
ing off bronze or marble can be incorperaated into any composition, given patience.
2.) All good advice ffrom Dianne Durante.
3.) Don’t eliminate the the pedastals, they too can be appreciaed as beautiful architecural sculpture.
4.) I disagree again with these suggestions. If you are taking an historic photo you would want that background to
date your photo, to place it in time. ie Taking a photo of modernism reaching the American hinterland you would not remove stop signs or autos in, lets say an intersection.
A favorite photo I took in downtown St Paul, Mn was of the Robert Street Bridge over the Mississippi River.It shows the
sculpture of the limestone bridge, the metal railroad bridge
and just below the top of the picture is an electric wire,
creating an internal frame.
5.) Again all good advice from Dianne Durante.
6.) “…you may have to settle…” to me sounds very
defeatist. You are a PHOTOGRAPHER. We see the world differ-
antly!! EVERY photo you, or we take is not ’setteling’ but
an expression of creative FIAT ACCOMPLI. (Some not as much as others.)
I did not see any relevance with the inclusiion of those
italicized, blue underlined keywords, ie “portriat” “William
Earl” “Jackie Gleason” or “no parking”. The resulting ssites didn’t make any sense. Your Website resulted in
virtural dead ends with no direct connect to and/or con-
fussing connections.
Then as we go dwn the page we get to “12 Responces to…”
that was just as confussing. With respondents saying, “Go tothis”, and “No, go to this.” with none of them having anything to do with the article.
I never was able to make it to [See LINCOLN @ Union
Square.]
Those photos from Omaha was Garish.
InFinAteNnTroPi
Great tips, Dianne! I do a bit of traveling and seem to be drawn to taking photos of statues. I don’t always have the luxury of waiting out the weather, but your point is well taken. I’ll definitely keep the other tips in mind (particularly background check).
Many thanks.
Bob