A Photographic Journey.

Product photography for the nonprofessional is a challenge. Mastering the camera, the lighting, and the setting are all part of the process.

All year I've been pondering with what to do to change the look of my Etsy shop a bit. It was getting tiresome trying to always shoot against a plain white background. Since I am not a professional photographer, it was hard to control the lightening, for one thing, and it felt a little too sterile, for another.

So I decided to mix it up a bit. Yesterday I started taking some product shots in a more natural setting in one of our rooms. Here is an example:

This pink, pale yellow and cream scarf looks better against the pale salmon color of these walls than it did against pure white. Also, it's nice to have a few props in the photo.

Here's one of the previous photos that I just removed from the shop listing:

And here, to my embarrassment, is one of the first photos I took of this scarf:

What do you think. Is this progress? Got any good tips?

Bangle Photo Styling

Up until now the bangle photos in my Etsy shop only show the one item being sold. Others sellers often show other styles or a group of items in at least one photo of the five allowed for each item for sale. I got to thinking about how it might be nice to show my bangles mixed up with some others.

Also, I've been using a new camera. My (very) old one is a 5 megapixel Nikon Coolpix5000. I think I do pretty well with it in spite of its age, but this new 14.1 megapixel Panasonic Lumix is a dream to use. Its capture rate is much faster and the digital display in the back is larger so I can compose shots faster and spend less time on photography.

So here are some of the results. Tell me whether you think the styling looks better with the bangles stacked or fanned out on the surface. I can't decide which looks better. 

Here they are all stacked up like layers of ingredients on a mouthwatering burger.

This is short stack with a little tilt.

Overlapped somewhat neatly, like cards laid down for a winning poker hand.

A little group in natural disorder, like you just took them off and laid them down.

Another sandwich-style stack a little messier than the first photo above.

What do you think? Do you have a favorite? Do they all work? I cannot afford live models nor the time it would take to photo style them, so hopefully these new product shots will convey some options for buyers.

Enticing Purple Flowers

Like I said in my last post, the unusually early Spring here in Oregon has gotten me dreaming of flowers. Here's lovely group of them in purple.

Chicory Flower by Aussiegall

Passion fruit flower by Nganguyen

Unknown flower by Ola Wiberg (Is it a Dahlia?)

Lotus - Beautiful Flower by Shamih ( iZZo )

Early Spring Flower, Columbine by photogirl7

Purple flower & bee by dicktay2000 (Lavender)

How Do You Photograph Black Fiber?

That's a question which really needs to be posted on a Ravelry forum; however, life is too chaotic now with overtime at work and marathon knitting, crocheting & beading going on during the Olympics at home. There's no time to start and keep up with a forum thread.


What lead me to this question was this charcoal grey neckwarmer that was knit over the past weekend. (It's a basic turtleneck without the sweater. Easy peasy to knit while watching downhill skiing!) I wanted a picture of this item before I mailed it off to its destination because a variation is jelling in my brain-o. (Jello is my brain, oh, too much TV!)

A photoshoot for just this neckwarmer seemed a little silly, so I grabbed a couple of black things for a challenge: a jet black scarf of machine knit tuck lace and a jet black crocheted purse that I got from a friend.

Golly, black is probably just as hard to photograph as red is. (More on that subject later.)


Here's a close-up of the scarf. Does it look jet black to you? The best I could get was this photo-edited version. All my shots were over exposed and I had to reduce the light levels and luminosity settings. To me the photo looks a deeper shade of charcoal grey, not jet black--but how can you photograph black and still show detail? I googled, but didn't find a satisfactory answer.

Here's the purse which is crocheted out of jet black nylon cord:


You have to throw some light on the subject or you can't see any detail. Too much light and the black looks washed out. Too little, no detail. Shooting at an angle seemed to help.

Anyone out there with suggestions?

Pink & Blue Sky & Yarn

Sometimes, beauty shows up suddenly.

You gotta be ready not to miss it.

You have to be there and look up just at the right time.

You have to show appreciation right away because the opportunity might not last.

*****

The sky outside my window tonight was so inviting that I had to run out to the deck to see it closer and snap its photo.

Good thing I went at once. A minute later, it was gone.



Isn't it beautiful? Reminds me of this sweet handspun 2-ply yarn I just bought from The Spun Monkey on Etsy. Glad I bought it. Great stuff like this goes fast!

Photo Session Slog

Last week was devoted to hand washing and blocking finished goods that need to be photographed, have their descriptions written, and then listed on Etsy. Why does this take so much time, you may ask. Mostly because I am a total tard when it comes to taking photos.

This weekend has been devoted to photo shoots. My head model, Valerie, and I have been busy at work. Amelie, my inner assistant, could not keep the studio organized amidst the frenzy, and when last I saw her yesterday evening she was sitting in the corner crying.

Have I mentioned how tiresome it is shooting product photos? How frustrating? How time consuming?

Yes, you see some pretty pictures here on the blog. Yes, I have come a long way. But what you don't see, in the hundreds of photos that get deleted, is the sludge. A girl has her pride.

Hats are pretty easy to photograph because Valerie is such an attractive head model. Shawls and scarves are killer difficult, though. We don't really have a great spot in the house for shooting on a dress form. Any places where there is a blank, uncluttered, lighted-colored wall is drenched in yellow light if the sun is out and dreary as crazy when it's raining. When the light has been ideally overcast recently, I've been hard at work at my day job.

My dream is to eventually set up an actual photo-shoot spot in the daylight basement using a backdrop with a better dress form or a mannequin. But that will involve cleaning out a truly gross storage room and will have to wait until after the holidays.

During the day on Friday and yesterday, I shot lots of photos of scarves, almost all of which were useless with bad draping and horrible color quality even though I have learned how to adjust the white balance meter in my camera.

Where I do have luck is in using my light box, but the dress form won't fit in it, of course.

Valerie is the one who thought of letting her model some scarfs. The idea had some limitations, but we tried it.


The photos in the first batch were mostly pretty good. So we tried some more. The next photo is actually a cowl. You should see how bad the photos had been on the dress form.


This cowl was made from some mohair/wool/acrylic/rayon bouclé that was rescued from a wrap with a rip in it. I'm guessing at the fiber content.

Here is the finished rose lattice scarf which you saw in progress here.



Valerie really had fun with this scarf, and had to try it ever so many ways.


When we got to the point of shooting this last photo, though, I knew it was time to quit.



It was late and we were both pretty rummy. I waited until today to photograph purses. Don't get me started on what a challenge that is!

Playing with Photography

My photos need work, so yesterday I set out to experiment. The goal is to get more of my product photos selected for treasuries on Etsy so that my shop gets more exposure.

Some of the photos that I had taken early on were really bland and my shop didn't have enough of a unified style. Not enough of the photos were eye-catching. What could I do to make them pop off the page?

Some old roses, from a bouquet that a friend had brought me the week before, tempted me to take pictures of them.

The two photos above had their saturation lowered and were developed in Adobe Lightroom with the setting called "Punch." After shooting these, I wondered what else could be done with old roses, and then I remembered--that's the name of one of my bead lariats. So...this is what I shot next.

This photo didn't have any fancy settings.

Well, what else could I do with a rose? How about some artsy setting from Lightroom--I forget what it was called:

Here's a setting called "Old Photo" on the next shot:

And here's the original:

Next I decided that I really liked my jewelry with flowers. So I'm off on a whole new trek!

Difficulty Photographing the Color Red

There is this a summer scarf that I made a while ago and have yet to put in my Etsy store because the color has been so hard to photograph.

In most of the photos so far, this scarf comes out looking bright red or magenta. Actually it's a two-ply linen with one ply in raspberry and one in orange. They are the yummy colors of sherbet.

Around forty photos have been scrapped so far. These photos are the best I've gotten, but I don't think they are good enough. I've had to really bring down the saturation to come close to getting the hue developed correctly. In the process the brightness of the actual colors has been lost. I've played with the exposure, the fill light, and the white balance.

Red evidently is a difficult color to render on a digital camera. There's a similar issue with purple. Most of my deep purples come out looking blue, both in the camera's display and in the finished photograph.

Look how different the color looks below. I wasn't able to correct the pinkish cast on the scarf or on the white background.

Information on the Internet seems to indicate either white balance, saturation, exposure, or camera color calibration issues. Several people in forums say that you should give up taking JPEGs if you want to capture red accurately and start shooting in camera RAW format.

This is way more than I wanted know about photography, but I may be forced to learn. Either that or give up ever making anything in red or purple.

It's probably worth one more photography session. If that doesn't work, this scarf will be part of the one-year blogaversary giveaway. (Be sure to stay tuned!)

By the way, no orchids were harmed in the taking of these photos. As a matter of fact, this photo was taken in April and this orchid has re-bloomed already. I think it liked the whole modeling gig.

New Oregon Flock & Fiber Friends

I was too busy to write this past weekend and I am swamped at the day job this week.

Here in the way of an apology are some friendly faces from the Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival.

Little Gold Minx!

Yesterday I chose five handmade products from inventory to be guinea pigs for an two-day photo shoot. They were all pretty willing subjects at first but started misbehaving by the end of the second session today.

Mostly it was the fault of a golden-haired pouch that is small enough to fit on the palm of your hand. She may be little, but she has the scream of a banshee when she's irritated, and she likes to talk her compatriots into joining her in mischief. She's extremely sociable and spends most days chilling with her friends and partying, so getting her to sit still for photographs was a real feat.

This little tart really got snarky as the day went on. She kept whispering asides to the others about required 15-minute breaks and the need for a good handbag union. Every time when I wasn't looking she'd move a little bit so that getting a quality photo was next to impossible with her. Pretty soon she got them all doing it.

Honestly, it's a good thing digital cameras were invented. If I had to shoot as many photos with film as I took these last two days, I'd need a generous sub-prime loan to develop all the shots.

By mid-afternoon I had had enough as well. Thankfully, Mr. Cha Cha and I had plans to go to Art in the Pearl, a great outdoor art show that is held in Portland every Labor Day weekend. All the products were still lingering in the light tent when we headed out the door. All except for Goldie who was demurely sitting on a side table looking like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth.

Little poser!

Here's how I found the sassy little vixen when we got home four hours later! Totally saturated!

First Product Photo Shoot

Selling on Etsy.com is a competitive undertaking because there are so many sellers there now and they have a lot of great products for sale. To really stand out, good presentation is paramount. Nowhere is this more important than in your product photos. This is a big disadvantage for me because I truly suck at taking close-up photography!

Successfully photographing products like jewelry, crafts and collectibles is a real challenge. The photos have to be taken at close range in just the right lighting conditions so that the image is crisp and the item is not washed out or over exposed.

A lot of great photos can be taken outside on overcast days (something we have an abundance of here in Oregon) when the weather is dry. (Oh-Oh!) Okay, so if outdoors doesn't work for you, you can use a lightbox. A light box, or light tent, is like a miniature photography studio that you can fit in a small space.

Here's the frame for a large temporary light box that Dennis built for me out of PVC pipe. He's also ordered me a professional tabletop one that comes with special lights and some backdrops for a birthday present. What a guy!

Notice that Samba, the world's best little sweetie-pie of a cat, is totally uninterested in the PVC frame. But just wait. When I drape a white sheet over it to make a light tent and install a nice white backdrop/floor, don't you know she'll be thinking it's her own private guest quarters.

So I will either have to keep her away or ALWAYS scrupulously clean it before taking photos of anything in it. Guess which scenario it will be.

Here's the photo-shoot setup.

The lamps on the sides flood light on the fabric which acts as a diffuser. These lights are not the best, but in this temporary setup they were serviceable. One had an OTT light bulb and the other a "daylight" bulb. Whichever kind of light you use, don't keep them too close to the fabric for very long or the fire department might be trying to join in the fun. The backdrop is a large piece of white matte board. (If you want to make your own setup like this, you can find instructions for making a PVC lightbox here and here.)

Now you may think that the purse handles on the handbag naturally stand up straight and perky like that. Think again. They were floppy things and had to be tied in that position with invisible nylon filament thread.

Have you ever worked with that stuff? Its the jumpiest, curliest, most pesky fiber you can imagine. Just loves tying itself in knots. Before I got those purse handles picture perfect that filament had wrapped itself around my ankle and made a couple of circles around my big toe and then slipped under the buckle on my sandals just before the spool rolled across the room. This was discovered as I tried to retrieve the spool and nearly pulled over the whole contraption. In some of the photos the thread showed a little, but in most shots it didn't. Out of the thirty pictures I took, I got three good ones.

Yikes, at that rate I'll never make a profit on Etsy! I'll be spending all my time trying to get those 5 perfect photos allowed for each item.

Here's a close up of the bag showing the twin frames. Isn't this about the cutest handbag! I'm in love with it even though I almost always carry shoulder bags.

I didn't get around to trying to get a close-up photograph of the inside of a this bag which has a black grosgrain lining. Guess that's the next challenge.

A great way to end the day yesterday, after the photo shoot and blogging, was watching the closing ceremonies of the Olympics. Talk about your cirque du soleil chinois! What an amazing spectacle! I could have used some of that nylon filament to keep my jaw up off my chest because my mouth was agog out of awe most of the time that I watched. If you missed either the opening or closing ceremony, NBC is selling a DVD. It's destined to be a classic!