Quilt Photography Workshop

There is less than one week until the first monthly Quilt Photography Workshop link up.  If you want to add the button to your blog, you can find the code on my sidebar.  As a reminder, the first link up challenge is to pick some fabric(s) and take lots of pictures of it.  Remember the point of the post is the photos, not the fabric - try different angles, different lighting, and/or different ways of displaying the fabrics (not strange or unusual, just workable.)   And then write a post about it - your post will probably be more photos than words but you could maybe write about what worked, what didn't, what you want to try next time, and/or advice and questions for others.  Then come back here on August 25th to link up your post and see what everyone else did. 

And one suggestion I have for your post:  make sure we can see your photos.  For reference, I save my photos at 600px which seems to be the size I see on lots of other blogs.

This photography workshop is open to everyone who likes to take photos of handmade items - whether you take pics with a DSLR, a point and shoot, or even your phone.  The main point of the link up is to improve your blog photos and composition and variety, which can be worked on no matter what you are using to take pictures, are a big part of that.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, I bought my "fancy" camera early this year.  I am still learning how to use it through lots of trial and error but I did set two main goals for myself:  (1) use it only in manual mode and (2) try to avoid having to do a lot of post-editing.   By strictly using my camera in manual mode, I forced myself to learn the meaning of words like aperture and ISO and I took A LOT of awful pics - overexposed, underexposed, blurred - but it has been totally worth it.  I can definitely see a huge improvement in my photos - including photos of quilts, food, and people.  It seemed daunting at first to learn how aperture, ISO, and shutter speed worked together but now, while I still make plenty of mistakes and take lots of bad photos, I can say I understand it (which means you can too!!!)  I am still learning - I still am envious at the amazing photography I see on other blogs - but I think I am at least moving in the right direction.

My second goal was to avoid having to spend a lot of time editing my photos. I already spend too much time on the computer - I would much rather be taking photos or making things to photograph or spending time with the people in my photos - not cropping or adding brightness!  Again, this is definitely a work in progress but I have really been able to reduce the number of photos that need any post-processing.  Especially cropping - I think that is what I used to spend the most time on but I hardly ever need to crop photos now.

For me, photography is an important part of the blogging experience.  I think when I first started blogging, I tended to rush the photo part so that I could get my post published but now I think of taking pictures as part of the process.  Sometimes, this means having to wait to post until I can get better pics - whether that means waiting for daylight, better weather, or for someone older than 2 to hold the quilt for me!  Actually, I guess my third goal would be to work on taking photos using indoor lighting (not flash.)  I'll write about my other photography goals in a later post - they include using props and adding variety to my photos.

So, what do you think?  What are your goals?  What are your thoughts about the importance of blog photography?

For more info about the quilts in these photos, see this post.  The patchwork-y one is the back of this quilt.