I photographed this horse-drawn terra-cotta chariot in the museum adjacent to the famous 3rd century B.C. tomb of the first Chinese emperor in Xian, China. It is encased in glass, and when I first entered the museum and saw this magnificent work of art, I thought it would be impossible to photograph it. Surrounding the large glass case were dozens of people. The crowd was probably 6 people deep. In addition, there were reflections in the glass, and the room was very, very dark. I had a tripod, but it was impossible to use it because of the density of people. But, I really wanted to get the picture. So, I waited patiently and, as the people in the front moved away, I worked my way up to the front position right in front of the glass. This took about 10 minutes. It turned out there was a narrow ledge that was part of the low wall surrounding the display. With very little room to work because of the shoulder-to-shoulder crush of tourists, I extended two legs of my tripod and set them on the floor in front of me. I placed the short third leg on the ledge which provided a solid platform. With a Sigma f/1.8 14mm wide angle lens on the camera, I leaned the camera and tripod forward and pressed the lens up against the glass to eliminate as many reflections as possible. My settings were 1/60, f/1.8, and 2500 ISO. I didn't want to use a long exposure (with a lower ISO) because I was afraid of my tripod being inadvertently bumped by a nearby person. It was also possible the glass could have vibrated with people touching it. In Photoshop, I eliminated the people in the background by simply darkening the areas where I could see them, and there were a few reflections I had to clone out, too.
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