Photo-phobia
Hurray! I just listed this "new" Passport Wallet in my shop:
It's "new" because I actually finished it 2 weeks ago but had been putting off photographing it. I'd been suffering from a case of Photo-phobia because my application to the very cool design site, trunkt, was recently rejected and I fear it's because of my photos.
After moping about it for a bit, I went in search of some help and the following tutorials gave me some excellent photography and Photo Shop tips:
Taking Professional Looking Photos Without a Professional
-by Lindsay Landis of Lindsay Designs, from The Switchboards
How to take and edit professional looking photos of your craft products-a tutorial
-by Lisa Lam, from CraftBoom
A Photo Shop Tutorial-Back to the Basics
-a You Tube Tutorial found at Etsy's The Storque
I also spent some quality time with the instruction manual for my digital camera and learned a lot about all those mysterious letters and numbers and white balance and such.
So, I don't know if my photos are any better than they were but at least I feel more educated about the process! Do you have any photography tips or tutorials to share? Leave them in a comment and I'll try and do a follow-up post with your suggestions!
12 comments:
I am so glad you posted this...I've been in a photo quandary lately. I've been trying a few things...including photoshopping out the background to pure white. I'm not sold on the look yet, but I wanted to give it a try. I used this tutorial over at Craftboom:
http://emomsathome.com/craft-boom/how-to-take-and-edit-professional-photos-of-your-craft-products/
Hi Plumm!
While I'm a proponent of a white background (as all my pics will attest) I've always loved your darker backgrounds, too. The darker backgrounds give your bags a great context. I like your new white backgrounds, too, so I can see why you're in a quandry!
We use a huge piece of white foam board for my product backgrounds, and really bright lights.
I've always thought that your photos were great!
Thanks, Jenn :)
Ooh, white foam board is a great idea! I've been using white poster board but with 2 kids, the poster board often end up as art projects. And I've always assumed you used natural light for your photos because your pics have such a lovely, sunny quality to them. (And I've also wondered, "How come Jenn gets so much more sun in her part of Seattle than mine?")
I think your photos are great and so are your products. This just confirms my suspicions that I am really not ready to apply to Trunkt.
I have no photo advice. :(
I love the wallet pictured, btw.
Thanks, Steph! Your product pics are beautiful-what kind of lighting do you use?
what kind of sewing machine do you have??!
jjs
I have a Viking 350 Sew Easy. It's 10 or 11 years old and my very good friend.
I love the passport holder! It's the best one I've seen.
Thanks for the photo tips. My house doesn't get alot of light for some reason and I've been to lazy to drag out a lamp to brighten things up. I would try to do it in Picassa and it just isn't the same.
~Elaine
Love the fabric in the passport wallets! I wish you had these over the summer for my trip to Italy- my Target wallet just screamed "tourist!"
Trunkt has no idea what they are missing out on. Although, I think the photography response may be a standard one. I know of several people (with good photography) that received the same response.
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