craftevolution

My least favorite blogging and Etsy task is taking pictures of the final product. Today I bit the bullet and took some 200 pictures of 10 rings to upload to my shop. It took me about an hour to take the pictures, another hour to edit them, and now I’m taking a break from listing the rings on Etsy. Altogether, It’ll probably take me four hours to finish this task from beginning to end. Ughh, I’d rather make a couple more rings.

I do like finding odd little places in my house to use as backdrops for pictures like these:

1. My daughter’s chalkboard table, 2. A Monopoly game box, 3. A quilt, 4. A white plate

For today’s photo shoot, I used a fabric remnant, a small glass dish, and a ring mandrel. I laid everything out on my usual staging area, the dining room table.

For some extra light I opened the balcony door and–presto–we’re in business.

For some more professional advice, there are luckily some helpful people out there who are willing to share their expertise with those of us who are less gifted with the camera:

• My crafting hero Lisa has a great tutorial on taking professional looking photos of your crafts on craftboom.com.
• Recently Etsy published an interesting video on taking pictures. They point out how you can brand yourself by using consistent backgrounds, or a consistent style for your pictures.
• Lindsay Landis has a very detailed tutorial on setting up an inexpensive light box made out of a plastic container and using Photoshop to further edit the picture.

Do you have any photography tips to share?