The Hall of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge

It was an unofficial commission by the College, with a view to a

possible new postcard, since the hall had recently been renovated.

The challenge here was to get the colours as accurate as possible.

The deep terracotta of the lower panels may well have been

traditional in 1594 (when the College was built), and the dark green

leather of the chairs is just about the complimentary colour to deep

terracotta. As you will see, there is a multiplicity of light

sources. The paintings are illuminated by incandescent light, and the

main lighting comes from fluorescent light reflected from the pale

cream ceiling. Then there is the very cold north daylight coming in

from the main window. Fortunately, the napkins and the menu cards are

pure white, so a reasonable balance is possible.

If you are visiting Cambridge, and taking photographs, do not expect

to see anything like this. The tables are laid with the Colleges

best silver in readiness for a commemoration dinner, and the security

was very tight.

There is a booboo. When I am taking photographs, I usually take my

spectacles off, and put them down somewhere. This time I had

forgotten where. They are at the fourth place setting on the right-

hand table. I apologised to the client, and said that I could touch

them out, but she said leave them there. It is like the artist who

always put a mouse somewhere in his paintings.

Hi Pradipta

Thanks for the comment. If the frame of the picture looks sharp, it is not your PC/Browser. There was no scanning, of course. The original image is pin sharp from front to back. The college crest can be made out on the menus, but the menu text itself is too small to read. Quite likely the problem is that the original image contained a huge amount of detail, and it was compressed by a factor of 1000 to post on photo.net. I might have got a sharper looking very small image by applying a huge amount of unsharp masking before the compression, but, since it is a commercial image, it is not in my interest to post a high quality image. Thanks anyway.