My first critique - still shot of urns in sepia

[theantiquetiger]

I remember (or actually don't remember) a section when I took B&W photography with film, we we going for hot or cold, wet, etc textures. This shot has not been touched with PS, it is straight from my camera, shot in sepia, manual, but I didn't move the speed, f-stop, etc.

I was looking for a cold texture (like EdG's grapes and post photo where the texture on the grapes are jumping out). Would I slow the speed to get a better feel of the urns' textures?

[Marko]

Shutter speed has no effect on texture.

If you want to reveal texture you need the right light. Usually that light is sidelight or close to sidelight.
Front light (from your direct on camera flash) is the worst light possible for revealing texture because you need shadow detail to reveal texture and front light "fills in" that shadow detail.
Hope that helps - Marko

[Gremlich]

Make a diffuser out of a ping pong ball, make an appropriate cut, stick it over the pop-up flash and try that. get some distance though and crop the image for effect. Don't used anything but a white one for starters

;-)

[thoughton]

I think that without some side lighting the best way to coax some texture out of this would be in post processing, which you haven't done any of (Are you shooting in jpeg?) Some enhancement of the micro-contrast should help. This has various names depending what image processing program you use, but usually it's called clarity, definition, or presence, or something similar.

Although as Marko says, the bright spots from the onboard flash don't help and will kill the mood slightly.