I'm new to the forum and am trying to impove my photography, in part by participating in the weekly assignments. For this week's I took some shots of an antique silver cup made for my grandfather by his uncle and some old wooden blocks of my father's. I rigged up a half-ass lightbox for the pictures, but I was having a very hard time because the cup was acting as a mirror and I could see the camera (and the box flaws on that part of it) very clearly in the cup. I'd appreciate your thoughts and suggestions on these:
I am curious about the choice of a smooth white background for an image with the theme of "antique". Might a darker background with perhaps some texture to suggest age have complimented the theme for a stronger image?
I think you are right that it would have been better. I actually first tried this arranged on an antique dining set but I didn't like how any of them came out. Unfortunately I didn't have anything near to hand for a dark background and small kids limited scrounging/imrpov time. Thanks for the helpful comment.
i think that you should separate the elements, both the cup and blocks are unique and perhaps in my opinion don't go together.
put the cup in a different setting like on a shelf or on books or in a china cabinet. something else other than white background.something that signifies age
simillarly you could do the blocks separately in some other setting. maybe show newer toys out of focus and then them as the subject with some lighting effects
but it has potential
try tightening up the crop around the BOTW section and lose the blue rod. when you crop, cut some of the blocks in 1/2 to let us think that the blocks go on forever. The red paint at the top of the pic tells me that they are in some sort of box.
