Illustration No. 39 shows another type of set-up, being a combination of vertical and shelf set-ups. In this case, the customer wanted to show the peanuts full size, and yet wanted to show the large can, in which they were packed, on the same print. The peanuts in paper cups were photographed on the vertical camera, and the container on the shelf. As the exposures were all made on film, they were easily cut apart and all mounted on a 10 x 12 glass and then blocked out. This film is a wonderful help in such cases, and a big improvement over the days when you had to cut the glass; especially when nobody knew where the glass-cutter was, and perhaps the errand-boy had been practicing with it, with the result that a plate was spoiled.
In photographing any complicated mechanism which must be blocked or have a pure white background, and cannot be photographed on a vertical, for instance, a motorcycle, to save a lot of work, set it up on your platform about three or four feet away from a pure white background. Place an electric light on each side, in such a position that it shines directly on the background and not on the object being photographed. Give enough exposure so that the back ground will come white, in much the same way as when using the vertical camera, then cut off the electric lights and expose for the detail.
Another proposition that arises at times is in connection with making negatives for catalogue half-tones when the customer has all his pages made up, that is, electrotypes and half-tones set up, and he then discovers at the last minute that an article is out of style, out of stock, or something has gone wrong necessitating a change in cut and a new photograph made for substitu tion. The problem then put up to the photographer is to photograph the sub stituted article so that it will exactly fit into the empty space, which is really more difficult than it sounds, as oftentimes the article, say a box, is posed on a slant and tilted in different ways.
One procedure on a job of this kind is to take tracing or tissue paper and make a tracing of the old cut, or photograph if you have it, and then make the new photograph to conform with this tracing, using the tracing paper against the ground-glass of your camera to follow it more exactly in focusing. Some operators put a little castor oil or glycerine on the paper to make it more trans parent. This is a job that comes up often in doing engraving house work, and usually is a tough one, as it means putting the camera in exactly the same rela tion to the article as the other operator had it, and using the same focal length lens.
If one is perplexed at times to get a set-up that looks symmetrical and at the same time fairly conventional, and is at his wit's end for ideas, a little suggestion that may be in place at this time, is to keep a supply of catalogues on hand covering the various kinds of business that are in his vicinity and keep up-to-date in ideas. Do not let the customer have to fill you up with ideas. Give the customer an idea now and then.
The kind of plates that will be used in the studio for merchandise and catalogue work is varied and ranges from process films or plates clear through the color-blind, yellow sensitive and panchromatic plates. Films are rapidly supplanting plates in the larger share of this work, excepting with reference to jobs requiring the panchromatic plates, in view of their non-halation quali ties and the fact that they give better results and are easy to handle, store and ship. Panchromatic plates are, of course, necessary for a great deal of work where reds must be given their correct color value.
The lens to be used in the studio should preferably be of fairly long focus, although I have often used an extreme wide-angle lens in certain set-ups for advertising concerns who often get what they call "ideas." On vertical cameras, of course, most of us are limited to medium focus lenses, in view of the necessity for working close to the set-up. About the first thing that strikes you in using a vertical, is that your lens is giving seemingly distorted images, and it will be found that the extreme corners will have to be tilted in slightly, that is, the center of your set-up is lower than your outside edges, which will have to be pulled in, much the same as in group work with the old style lens.
Waste of Plates.—It is the habit of some operators to make an exposure, and then make another to see if they can better the first or make it a little hit different. To my mind, that is foolish waste. It not only wastes plates, but it destroys confidence in your own ability and always arouses a suspicion in a customer's mind that if you made another you would get it still better. I know for a fact that it can be done away with, as many of the big studios charge every plate to their operators and make them show a negative of some kind for every plate issued, and it makes good operators. They rarely, if ever, miss on an exposure, as they think instead of guess. Another phase of this matter is that you have not got a lot of plates lying around on which no order can be obtained, and which are chargeable against the profit on a job.