Photographs

I'm never 100% happy with my photographs, so whilst taking pics of my latest kits I had another play around with the composition and styling. As part of my C&G felt making course last year I filled a few sketch books with work based on vintage. This was a good move because it meant I could spend time perusing my favourite shop in Harrogate, Space and pretend I was working :-)

One of my purchases was a vintage wallpaper sample book, it has some beautiful designs in it (but quite a few shocking ones which I'm sure resulted in lots of headaches). After my course finished I thought I might frame some of the samples and group them together on one of our walls, unfortunately my husband did not share my enthusiasm, so they were tucked away in the studio gathering dust, until the other day when I had a ping moment and thought they would be perfect as backdrops for my photo shoots.

I was so pleased with the results that I am now re doing all the other kits as well. Unfortunately this is taking some time as the sun hasn't been coming out to play to often this week, but I'm getting there. You can see the before (very pink) and after photographs in my store.

I know a lot of people struggle to take good quality photos of their products, and whilst I'm no expert I have spent years trying to improve, so thought I would share some of my techniques.

 In the past I have used a pop up lighting box for taking product shots, which is great if you want products only with a white background, but quite awkward if you are using props, so I set up the sunny corner of my studio instead. It's hard to believe but the sun was a little too bright the other day and was casting harsh shadows so I sellotaped some white tissue paper to the window and it worked a treat.

To prop up the finished brooches I had to be quite creative. The mice, for example have pins going through their feet, which act as little stands (I just photoshopped them out afterwards). The sheep and birds were more tricky as their legs don't support them so I rigged up a frame (very Heath Robinson), which you can see in the photograph above, and hung them from pieces of cotton, again, all evidence was removed in photoshop.

Before, with pins.

After, pins removed and image brightened.

Before with thread visible.

After, thread and stand base removed.

I have only recently purchased photoshop, and whilst I would love to have bought the all singing and dancing version, my budget wouldn't stretch that far, and I'm not sure our computer would have coped either, so I bought the elements 10 version, which is much cheaper and more or less does everything I need it too.