Photographing brass plaques can be challenging.
Brass plaques remain a staple of metal working and have been produced for many decades. Photographing metal in general can be tricky, since many types of metal tend to reflect light and flashes. Brass in particular holds an unflattering reputation among many photographers because of both its reflective properties and because of the dull color on old brass that can make it hard to make out intricate plaque details from a photograph.
Instructions
1. Bring a full bag of equipment with you to the brass plaque being photographed. Make sure you bring the camera, a tripod, anti-glare spray, reflectors, and some ambient lights. You won't likely need all of these, but carrying all of this equipment will help to assure you of being prepared for every possible problem that comes with photographing a brass plaque.
2. Determine what your situation is for photographing the plaques. Are they inside or outside? Can you touch them or not? Photographing brass plaques works best without a flash and without too much lighting. By determining what factors you can control, you will know go about photographing the brass plaques.
3. Use reflectors or side lights, or both, if you need additional light; do not use a flash. Having is important, but you don't want the glare from light reflecting off of the brass. By using side light or using lights off of reflectors, you can get enough light to take a picture with a brass plaque. Mess around with any combination of these to get the right shots.
4. Spray anti-glare or anti-reflecting spray if you are allowed to touch the plaque in order to make the photography easier. Do whatever it takes to limit the amount of reflective light in the area.
5. Take multiple pictures. If you're using a digital camera, make sure to check each shot and keep a variety of pictures to see what comes out the best. Again, do not use flash otherwise there are likely to only be bright reflections in the picture.
6. Use side angles to see if you can get better light or set up with the bronze plaque photos.
Tags: brass plaque, brass plaques, enough light, Photographing brass, with brass, with brass plaque