The story of April

This is one of my favorite. Everytime I see this photo I laugh silently at myself, remembering how clumsy and funny I must have looked during the shooting.
The ballerina's leg is not from a plastic doll, it's the tip of an ancient, eroded conch shell! I found it on a beach right behind a famous local seafood spot. This tiny beach is literally covered with tons of shells from oysters, clams and conch.
The graceful ballerina is tip-toeing through a maze of pastel gems, floating on quicksilver...actually it's a mirror with seaglass scattered all over, me steadying the 'ballerina' with one hand, clicking the camera with the other. And I'll tell you, that's no easy job!
Most of the time, and this time as well, my 'photo studio' happened to be the extra-wide 2.5 feet window pane in my living room. I started off with a small mirror, but quickly realized that I need something much bigger to cover the whole background. I ended up taking the wall mirror off my dressing room. This mirror is 2x5 feet. In order to catch the sunlight at the right angle, it has to be placed across the window pane, so half of it just hanged off the edge!
I set up everything, precariously balancing the overhanging half of the mirror on my knee, scattered seaglass all over the mirror, held the conch tip in place, while squatting with my camera to take in everything at the best angle. Alas, the mirror surface is so smooth that the 'ballerina' kept slipping, the mirror kept tipping over, throwing seaglass all over the place! Patiently I picked up everything, set them up again and repeat.
I don't know how many times that slipping, tipping and scattering happened, but I knew I was sweating like mad from the crazy balancing act! All the while I kept telling myself to get better props and try again some other day. Yet the optimmist in me cooed, 'give it one more try, it'll be perfect this time'. I don't know why I hadn't thought of using a camera stand in the first place!
Gradually, the sunlight changed its angle and no longer worked, so I just have to stop. I uploaded the 50 plus shots on my computer and looked through them closely. Gladly, at least a few looked close to what I have in mind. I smiled with satisfaction and lied on the floor, massaging my sore back.

The story behind my seaglass calendar photo for March

March is almost over now, I'll have to catch up with my post this month!

What does a bunch of turquoise gems, rusted key and coins on rotted wood make you think of? Pirate's loot and sea adventures! But that was not what I have in mind when these blue-green seaglass and pottery were selected to go with verdigris speckled beach coins and skeletal key.
One cloudy summer day. I took them to my favorite beach, and laid them on an old wooden log. I've had my eyes on that log for quite some time - dark brown, almost black and covered with holes, quietly rotting away - it's the perfect background for some bric-a-brac with history!
I found all these seaglass, sea pottery and lucky coins from different beachcombing visits, spanning many years. I just could not decide which is my favorite! The milk glass bottle tops are really unique; and I've never seen any other marble with turquoise cat's eye in pale green glass; those large, rounded turquoise gems are my dreams come true...and I'm so luck to have found that many beach coins, even though, except the US penny, all were corroded beyond recognition.
Yet I have to confess - there's one among the collection that was not a beach artefact - the skeletal key. I've bought this antique brass key at a flea market, painted it with verdigris patina and surprised myself with the result. Did I fooled you too?

The story behind my seaglass calendar photos

Reaching home tired from a full day's work, I am instantly cheered up when I saw what the postman left for me - a big parcel from Down East publishers! In the summer of 2011, I took photos of my seaglass collection for their 2013 seaglass calendar. These are my complimentary copies! As I look at the photos of each month, and savored every word of the informative captions by Carole Lambert, memories rushed back. How I worked hard to make these photos unique and interesting! In the coming monthly blog posts, I will tell the story behind the photo for that month.

JANUARY 2013
English seaglass multies - these ones in whirls and layers of peacock shades - their rich colors and patterns are best appreciated when wet and under bright sunlight. I have experimented with glass vessels of different shapes until I found this shallow dish. Deep enough to immerse all the glass and just the right size without getting in the way of the peacock feathers behind it. It was a very sunny day. The seaglass casted colorful shadows, and the water made interesting patterns at the edge of the dish. The peacock feathers exerting their brilliant colors. A dynamic pose of still life!

 

My latest jewelry designs of English Seaglass

Once again, I cannot help but dedicate another post about English seaglass. Their century old history brings nostalgia and awe to the beholder -who would have guessed that these leftovers thrown into the sea right from onshore glass factories could become something so beautiful and sought after!
I am in love with every piece of English seaglass jewelry that I have made, and never tired of looking at their photos! I have included my best ones here; some are sold, many are still available. Be mesmerized and hypnotized by their beauty...

Cornflower blue seaglass with swirls of bubbles - hallmark of handblown seaglass! Set with blue rhinestone dewdrop and sterling silver leaf bail. Apple for your eye!

Striped in green and amber, this sweet little gem is set with a sparkling rhinestone in one of its surface bubbles. I called it 'firefly'!

Exquisite English multies in blue and green - wear a piece of the ocean wherever you go!

Simplest design of sweet seaglass 'bubbles' in the palest shade of green.

Unique pattern and color, like footsteps in the snow...

Mustard gold English seaglass multi wrapped in gold filled wire, on antiqued brass chain - that ancient English look!

A sweet pure white 'egg' and a tiny sterling leaf - simply breath-taking!

I call them 'dalmatians' - but they are actually deep amethyst, dark green and deep blue on clear glass!

Seaglass Photography

A beach carnival of seaglass and seashells in bright red, orange, pink, yellow and purple!












Wedding white seaglass, seashells, corals and sanddollars arranged on lace!












Dream-like colors in English seaglass multies - send a card with this pic to get your friends hooked on collecting seaglass!












English red seaglass multies - dream of every seaglass enthusiast!












Typical of English seaglass multies, the mixture of blue, green and everything in between is magical!













Pool blue - a sea of blue English multies!













Opposite and Complimentary - super rare orange seaglass on a sea of cobalt blue.













Opposite and Complimentary - harmonious as black and white on a piano keyboard.














Opposite and Complimentary - what more need to say with a sea of hearts?













Seasons - Spring is here with pastel colored seaglass of all textures and shapes!













Seasons - Summer with the blazing sun and the blue blue sky!













Seasons - Winter. Snowball on my overcoat is actually English pure white seaglass!













Seasons - Autumn with its fiery colors!

In a frenzy of inspirations , beautiful images in my mind are put to reality with seaglass that I have aquired during years of beachcombing and tiredless online bidding! I have categorized them into 'seasons', 'opposite and complimentary' and 'English multicolors'. More are coming - I just can't work as fast!
These photos (in much sharper details) are available as blank greeting cards of 4x6 inches with white envelopes.

The Background Counts!

A couple of days ago, there was a question posted on etsy forum about how to capture the colors of theme objects accurately on photo. There were suggestions of types of light source (natural light works best), brand of cameras (quality isn't really proportional to price), camera settings, computer monitor settings... That set me off thinking about my experience with seaglass photography. I believe the choice of background colors is very important too.

Our eyes work differently from a camera - a piece of seaglass on a white background may look the same to us in natural or artificial light, but not so for the camera.

For example, I find it very difficult to capture the blue-green colors of teal and turquoise seaglass if I used a white background. This is because of the subtle fluorescence in bleached white paper or fabric. The camera picks this up as a diffuse blue tone, resulting in the turquoise / teal being comparatively greener than they really are.

I've overcome this by using a beige background or one with a yellow undertone, or white material that has no fluorescence - eg. ceramic.

These are the same batch of turquoise seaglass, taken under the same lighting condition (diffuse sunlight) with the same camera and same camera settings. The only difference is the background: white paper and beige paper for the first and second photo respectively.

White is another problem I had. The exposure is never quite right when shooting white seaglass on a white background. White on black background is sometimes too contrasty either. Then I've found that a pale shade of grey or goldtone works wonders!

I still do not have a working principle for matching background colors with subject colors, but the there's always nice surprises in the process of finding out!

Diffuse sunlight gives us the most balanced color spectrum to work with. But I just love the way the setting sun lights up my seaglass!

Well, most of the time, I just use different backgrounds for interesting results!