I'm honored, blessed and grateful to have been chosen and commissioned to photograph a gold coin (10 agorot) for the Six Million Coins™ Initiative. The coin can been prominently seen on the front of the tzedakah (charity) box. Over 25,000, yes, 25,000 boxes will be created and distributed for this remarkable initiative that starts on Sunday, April 7th, 2013.
(Above: My photo on the box that is on the splash page of the
Six Million Coins website.)
Click below for link to Six Million Coins. Org
http://sixmillioncoins.org/)
Click below for The Jewish Federation of Great LAwebsite:
Click below for The Jewish Federation of Great LAwebsite:
http://www.jewishla.org/
Click below for the Jewish Journal:
http://www.jewishjournal.com/
Click below for the Jewish Journal:
http://www.jewishjournal.com/
(Above: From the Facebook Page.)
Below: BEHIND THE SCENES
(Above: These coins are protected in a Zip Lock bag and were especially FedEx'd overnight from New York just for this photo shoot. And polished to boot!!)
(Above: Yes, ALL that gear is necessary to take a photograph of just one tiny little 4 gram coin.)
Taking a photo of one coin doesn't initially appear to take much time. However, in reality, it is quite hard to photograph.
Taking a photo of one coin doesn't initially appear to take much time. However, in reality, it is quite hard to photograph.
Why? A coin has glare and everything, yes, everything that is around the coin, gets reflected back into it. If you take a look at the above coin, or almost any coin for that matter, you'll see groves, ridges, valleys, peaks and areas, that when photographed, become huge light sucking "black holes." You have to be extremely careful with the theory of the "incidence of light," because if not photographed correctly, horrible shadows, unwanted glare, and hot spots appear.
For this job, I brought my Profoto™ strobes, umbrellas, softbox, table-top tent, Manfrotto tripod, plexiglass, white and black seamless paper and muslin, cords, power-strips, flags and the kitchen sink. hahaaa!!!
For the convenience of my client, I tethered my Canon 5D Mark III to my MacBook Pro Retina with a G-Drive external hard drive so that the client could instantaneously view the photos.
Originally the coin was placed with double-sided tape onto white cardboard and inserted into the table-top tent. The results were good, but not good enough. Somehow when shooting with the table-top tent, the coin lost its "coin-like" feel. It was 2 dimensional and not 3D as we were hoping. I shot from above the tent, from eye-level, from straight on and from many different angles.
We then decided to shoot the coin in natural light, with ambient light streaming through the windows. BINGO. Shot from an angle, in other words, not straight on, the coin had that shine, that glow, that coin-like feel to it that can be easily recognized as "natural." I actually shot two different coins, one was shot just for a back-up, in case the client decided to use one denomination instead. It's best to be prepared than return for a re-shoot.
Originally the coin was placed with double-sided tape onto white cardboard and inserted into the table-top tent. The results were good, but not good enough. Somehow when shooting with the table-top tent, the coin lost its "coin-like" feel. It was 2 dimensional and not 3D as we were hoping. I shot from above the tent, from eye-level, from straight on and from many different angles.
We then decided to shoot the coin in natural light, with ambient light streaming through the windows. BINGO. Shot from an angle, in other words, not straight on, the coin had that shine, that glow, that coin-like feel to it that can be easily recognized as "natural." I actually shot two different coins, one was shot just for a back-up, in case the client decided to use one denomination instead. It's best to be prepared than return for a re-shoot.
(Above: Initially I used a table-top tent to shoot the coin. The white material is a diffuser and softens the light and makes for even highlights and shadows on the object placed inside. Unfortunately, the "luster" and "sparkle" or "shine" of the coin was greatly diminished when shot using the table top tent.)
(Above: The final product!!!)
Shiggy Ichinomiya is a Los Angeles based Photographer specializing in advertising and commercial work, including wedding, destination wedding, engagement, maternity, boudoir, family, executive portraiture, sports, editorial actor's headshots, celebrity portraits, event and corporate photography.
Image is everything.
Image is very important.
Especially YOUR image. Period.
Book a professional photo session now.
"For a Professional by a Professional." (GSG)
Contact Shiggy directly: goshiggy@gmail.com
I'm very friendly too. Don't be shy!!!
