I've received compliments on my quilt photography, and been asked how to do it... I've spent a lot of time experimenting; here's a little of what I've learned and can think of:
***Use natural light if possible, take it outdoors if you can. If not, turn every light in the room on and spotlight with lamps... flash can do funny things but is sometimes unavoidable. I almost always take the same shot both with and without flash-some of the photos I'm putting here illustrate the difference.
***Take multiple photos in different poses, from various angles, different lighting, etc. For the 5 that get put on Etsy, I usually take anywhere between 15 minimum to sometimes 50 or more.
***For photos without flash, my camera anyway, takes longer to process and take the photo, so if I just hold the camera, the photo turns out fuzzy. So what I've been doing is steadying the camera against a solid object or setting it on a counter, chair, etc, to keep it still.
***Something I've been working more on is showing the item in use, with appropriate props. For example, a quilt on a bed with coordinating pillows, the fall table runner I just listed, I went all out and set the table like for Thanksgiving, with all the good dishes, centerpiece, serving dishes, etc.
I saw one hint somewhere from an Etsy seller... she tries to find unusual props for her jewelry (her current one is a teacup/saucer set on a table) and photographs her entire line on that prop to make her whole shop consistent for that season. The quilts I make are way too varied to do that with... but maybe I should start traveling around with them and find pretty mountains and old barns for a background, with a old fence, lol!
***Edit the photo afterwards till it looks right-if you start off with a decent photo, it usually only takes a little tweaking with color, focus, and brightness to get it right. It doesn't take a fancy program, I use the basic one on Windows and then put the copyright text and maybe 1 more "auto-tweak" in Picasa-Google's free program. When editing, use your undo button as much as the others.... it makes it less fearsome to try something out and see what it looks like.
***And take odd ones... sometimes they are just for fun, like the one here of my quilt top with the sun shining through, and sometimes that one shot turns out to be the clincher that catches people's eyes.
There are also some wonderful hints and tips out there, here are a few good ones:
http://handmademarketing.org/best-etsy-photography-how-to-take-online-photos/
http://www.handmadeology.com/jewelry-photography-tips-for-etsy-sellers/
http://www.handmadeology.com/jewelry-photography-tips-for-etsy-sellers/
~Andrea Harper Kuznicki, BSN, RN
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