Curly maple wall hung shelf unit

[Don Kondra]

Greetings,

This is a limited production piece I sell through galleries.

The shelves are curly maple from British Columbia, the support piece is Saskatchewan birch finished with black gesso. The unit hangs off two screws installed in the wall.

Each shelf is slightly wider than the next and they taper in width and length.

I shot it in situ with two Alien Bees strobes in softboxes. I actually tried shooting it against the latex roller painted drywall and I can tell you, that don't work

Ended up cutting off a piece of focus gray paper backdrop and pinning it to the wall...

Cheers, Don

 

[rabhobbes]

Very nice! The shot and the piece.

I'm looking into doing some work for a furniture craftsman right now, so this was timely.

 

[Don Kondra]

One thing I learned from this, when shooting right against the wall you're bound to get some light reflection off the shiny shelves into the corners and I thought I had the paper tight.

But, there was a slight halo around the shelves and the wrinkle was visible, at least to me.

I'd not used layers before, it was suggested to me to select the shelf parts then create another layer and set the blur to 50 % opacity and then merge the layers.

Much quicker and more effective than cloning, air brushing, etc...

Cheers, Don

 

[Christie Photo]

What's up with the bowing? Is that really the way it is?

-Pete

 

[Don Kondra]

Hi Pete,

Yes, it is slightly bowed, the angle and lighting make it appear much worse than it is ....

The shelves are cut from the most highly figured maple I've seen in a while and the blank was barely thick enough to resaw into three piece. I decided I could live with a slight bow to maintain the thickness.

And since the client was myself, I choose to think it gives it some character

Cheers, Don