For the first 21 years of my furniture making career, I had a friend, Cook Neilson, who photographed our best stuff, mostly in exchange for (bless his and his wife’s hearts) pieces of our furniture. Cook was famous for other stuff long before he arrived in town in 1979, and shortly after his arrival, he launched his local photography career with Orvis. So, for the years 1979 to 2000, I have many, many 4 x 5 transparencies and 35 mm slides as well as beautiful 11 x 14 color prints in portfolios that have been in a drawer in my office since digital took over for me after Cook retired in 2001. I’ve struggled with scanning and copying the slides to a digital format for a long time, and have recently discovered the ground glass, sunshine, D90 Nikon on a tripod method shown in the second photo above. I’m sure a current iphone would work at least as well or better. So, if you’ve had the same problem, struggle no more. This set up works great. Get a piece of gound glass at your local glass shop or sand one up yourself. Sunshine I found was better than any artificial light I could come up with.

Launch Gallery