Photography Tips

As promised, I will share some of the tips I learned from my friend, Bruce, who helped me take pictures of my products for etsy. The one thing I know for sure is this: The more I know about taking pictures, the less I know about taking pictures!

1. You need a neutral background and/or a light box.

2. You need two good lights, daylight photo bulbs, preferred. I used one compact flourescent, one incandescent bulb and the natural light from my window. One light is directed at a 45 degree angle to the product to cast shadows and the other is for ambient light, but not to overpower the first light.

3. You need to experiment with your camera, learn the settings, how to change them and what they mean. You also need to use the timer to take the pictures, otherwise you(me, too) will shake the camera and make the picture blurry.

4. You need a tripod!!!!!

That's the equipment.

Camera settings: Go to menu, and click through the different settings. Each camera will be different, some are definitely the same.

You should have aperture which is how wide the lens opens. In simple terms, 2.8 is the widest, 8 and above are small openings.

Make sure you have your camera set to the best picture taking pixels available. This will allow for better quality.

Photometry is whether you are using one spot light or more.

White Balance allows for the camera to automatically balance between values.

Focus--Put on auto focus.

Sharpness or clarity is set for hard. (Two other settings are normal and soft.)

Flash is set at zero.

My camera allows for manual selection of aperture settings, shutter speed and manual setting of both on a small round dial.

As I was taking photos yesterday, I paid attention to the background, the position of my lights, and I played with reflecting more light onto my product with foamcore. I learned to make sure that my shutter speed was 100 or above for the light I was receiving yesterday.

Next, you need to use a photo editing software of your choice. I crop my photos, I adjust the color, and whiteness of the picture so that it closely matchs the product color. Did I say that I dumped a bunch of photos that I had taken because they didn't match my products? Well, I did and so will you. If you have questions, leave a comment. Other people may have the same question.

I don't profess to know it all, but I am determined to take the best photos of my paper as I can so that maybe one day my paper will be on the Front Page of Etsy!!

Learning Photography!!

I will be learning to make my product photography better this afternoon with my good friend, Bruce. He's going to help me using my camera, tripod, light box and my desk lamps. I'm excited to learn THE tricks of the trade. I'll share with my blog friends later in the week.

In the meantime, check out my featured artist--DiamondIsis. She has wonderful photographs of nature and wildlife. The two above photos are samples of her work.

Featured Artist--DiamondIsis

I am pleased to feature a brand new artist/photographer on etsy. Lena of DiamondIsis is a fabulous photographer with a humorous take on life with shore birds, tender moments with horses and classic black and white photography. She has full color prints as well.

When I was chatting with her, she gave me interesting information.

Tell me something about yourself.
I am excited to be a part of the Etsy community and plan to keep adding onto my storefront! I live in a town outside of Richmond, VA with my Fiancee' and our four legged daughter, Isis Diamond (my store name is her name backwards).

How did you start with your current craft?
Photography is my passion and what started as a hobby when I was a teenager became a staple in my life! I would visit wildlife refuges with my parents and I got to where I would always take my camera. Then I went to school at the Academy of Art to study photography for two years; it was nice to learn formally as I had been self taught up to that point.

Do you have a full time job? If yes, what is it? Would you like to be full time at crafting?

I would love to be able to pursue photography full time; but for now I work full time as an Accounts Receivable Specialist for a local company in Richmond, VA. But I keep up with my photography in all the spare time I can spare, lol.

What do you like about your craft?
What I love about photography is being able to capture a moment that is beautiful; and being able to share that for everyone to enjoy! My hope is that people will enjoy my work as much as I enjoy going out and finding those moments to share! :)

Let's welcome Lena to the world of online sales and encourage her. Check out her etsy store, DiamondIsis. PS I also hyperlinked my favorite photos from her store.