I've been taking photos for my Etsy shop for new listings. Amongst others, photos of all the wonderful threads that I dyed recently. I have always taken a lot of photos when out and about, but photos for Etsy listings is a completely different way of taking photos. When setting up my shop there were a lot of things I hadn't really put a whole lot of thought into. One of them were how to take high quality photos. I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I had never even downloaded photos before opening my SewDanish shop. It was sooo much easier to ask my dear husband :-) And photo editing, no idea!
I do think it is fun and paramount to try to get your items look their best, but boy, sometimes I just cannot get it right. I have learned a lot from the Etsy forum and from looking at other sellers photos analyzing what works and what doesn't. I have come a long way since I took the first item pictures and over the months I have redone most of my first photos. It is pretty sad though, when one of my best Christmas presents last x-mas was a tripod and when you start reading your camera manual in bed before turning off the light. I have a straight forward 'point and shoot' canon camera, which for now is plenty. I had no idea how many settings it actually had before I needed them, and I definitely have to graduate from my little 'point and shoot' before I upgrade to something more fancy.
4 comments:
Just found your blog, through your ETSY post :)
It's very cute! I just hearted you on ETSY.
Photography is a passion of mine, yet I still have so much to learn, too. I tell you, product photography is the most challenging. It feels so good when you get it right, though. A lot of my mom's pieces have different shapes, and are coated with a gloss finish, so getting it not to glare but to be bright and sharp enough is a challenge. Thank goodness for digital, where it's so easy to take them over and get what you want:-) Good post!
Taking photos can also be very time consuming! I feel like I'm getting a little better at getting photos I can work with, but sometimes I keep have to go back and re-shoot things.
Do you use a lightbox? I don't have one, so I can only take halfway decent shots during the day if the weather is good. But it is gratifying to see one's photo skills improving, isn't it?
I agree! It does feel so good when the photos are spot on. And that taking the photos is time consuming! Fun, but time consuming. I don't have alight box, but I'm thinking about making some kind of light tent/backdrop. The table that I use as my base is one of my painted pieces of furniture, and that works well, but the wall behind is painted 'magnolia' and that changes colour so much depending on the outside light. Very difficult to control and sometime impossible to photo edit afterwards.
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