Using A Glass Sheet To Flatten Snapshots To Photograph Them

Flattening photographs is a delicate process to prevent as you so rightly point out cracking the emulsion.

Using a glass sheet to flatten snapshots to photograph them.

Silicone paper available at art supply and archival supply stores is the best to use but wax paper or parchment paper are acceptable substitutes. The techniques used here are known as black line and white line lighting and are defined by the way light is shown at the edges of the glass in contrast to the color of the background. She has been writing professionally since 2001 and her work has appeared in magazines such as senior living and mature lifestyles she is working on a bachelor of arts at state college of florida with a major in mass communications. This creates a white glowing outline that looks really beautiful.

Kobeissi adds different elements to the sheet of glass to. If this material is not available a smooth board or one quarter inch thick plate glass will do. But also narrow enough to keep the edges of your light source visible. She shares five different creative hacks using glass from a simple picture frame.

In this article i will show you how photograph a glass on both white and black backgrounds with minimal equipment and a fairly simple lighting setup. Using glass for creative photography hacks. Rewetting the prints will be ok it won t do any harm at all. The emulsion side of the photos can become sticky if damp.

I m sure you ve tried at least once to shoot through a shop window a car or train window a museum diorama or a glass aquarium or maybe even saw something nice on the other side of a home s window and photographed it only to be disappointed when the results came out. To get the same shot but on a black background add a sheet of black paper right behind the glass. The papers are probably not archival but you aren t using them for storage so short time use should not be a problem. But putting them wet in contact with anything like a pile of books will mean you end up with the photos emulsion firmly glued to whatever it touched.

A sheet of one half inch thick plexiglas cut to an appropriate size and with smoothed edges to make it safer to handle may be used to provide both a smooth flat surface and heavy weight. The sheet should be wide enough to cover the area right behind the glass. The safest way to add moisture to paper or fiber based photographs as compared to modern resin coated photographic papers is to leave it for a few hours in a tightly closed space with a source of humidity. Shooting through glass like wi ndows is one of the biggest challenges in photography.

You do need a print dryer to get them flat again although pressing them under weights bone dry might improve them a little.