Tuesday, September 2, 2014

From automatic to manual, from jpg to RAW

It's me and my photos again... :) I am really into getting better in (product) photos and as we all know - we only learn when practicing, I am giving my best here.

So I knitted just another rasta tube hat for my Etsy store (DigginRasta) and mu girl was happy to have a little photo session with it.

We had lots of fun and what was most important - I was finally putting my camera's automatic settings aside and I decided the ISO, shutter speed and aperture on my own!

So here we are:

My sweet little girl :))

Though my favorite photo is following:

Can you see the "roomy" effect in this photo?! I love it! I am getting better!! :) Well, now I need to get rid of the grayness and I know how. I gotta start taking my photos in RAW format - then they will be much easier to play with in PhotoShop.

So all in all - these pictures were taken while she sat on a desk, i used calc paper as backdrop and only natural light from a rather large window on the right. I also use a reflector to bounce some light to the other cheek AND I used a hill of books to support my camera with.

Camera - Nikon D80, lens - 50-1.8. Cheap, simple, handy.

Btw - in case you would like to order something from me or some other Etsy seller -HERE is a link that gives you $5 for your first purchase through Etsy!

Saturday, August 30, 2014

Our Product Photography Journey

Real cool part of making and selling crafts online is thefun of photo shootings. I love photography and lately I have discovered new ways of taking product photos.

Today I want to show few pictures that were taken during our shoots with my daughter, just to show that photo sessions can be pretty fun :) I must admit that in times I need to pribe my daughter in order to have her more cooperative - a new dress or something does the work. our deal is that every 5th sale of the products she has been moder for gives her a new dress.

Some of the first product photos of my crafts were taken in Belize where we stayed for almost a year. We lived on an island called Caye Caulker and as soon as locals found out that I can crochet, the orders started coming in. We worked out a net hat that worked well. After a while I decided to start selling these hats on Etsy.com as well and that required nice photos. Here you see my girl making faces and showing poses I didn't really request but oh well....


I ended up using this photo:


Here are we in Guatemala, in a tiny town called Flores. There I could buy yarn in many bright colors, after several months in Belize where yarn is not really what you can get any time and anywhere, it was such a pleasure to do the shopping even though it was only acrylic yarn that was available... So I made many colorful rasta mesh hats out of it.

End result? There wasn't really any :) I think I used this one (took some new photos later on though):


Here is another one that we took in Estonia, after building a little home photo studio. I knitted a rasta hat that has an open top and can be used as a cowl as well. You can see that i built the back drop of calc paper.


The end result is here. The photo is a bit darkish but all in all I am satified - it is just the beginning of my "career" in product photo :)

I have so much room to develop my skills and it is so exciting! So does my girl, she is getting better and better in modelling, good for us both!

Thursday, February 6, 2014

Going Barefoot On Caye Caulker

I want to start my new blog with a post about my little Caye Girl and her creative mind. As you may know we are living on a small island called Caye Caulker, in Belize. We are originally from Northern European country Estonia. The thing with Estonia is that both women and men in my country are rather craftsy. So am I possessed with knitting, crocheing and lately beadwork and macramè. I love the fact that also my girl shows lots of interest in handcrafts, doing it in her own way.

Here on Caye Caulker I make and sell barefoot sandals together with another Estonian, Piret. My Caye Girl loves the sandals too, naturally and so we have made her some 3 different designs. We are selling the sandals both on the island but also in our Etsy shop Caribbeanspirit.

No comes the coolest part - she tuned the sandals with small beads and loves wearing them in her way - either one at the time or by mixing two different colors. Here you see one in rasta color and the other one in Belize flag colors (or American colors):