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firesidetextiles · 2 years

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Hi, I just saw your wooden planchette purse (super cute!) and I was curious how you take your photos? Getting that smooth all white background and lighting and stuff

Hello! Thank you!!

Apologies for this being so long. I can def chat about photography. Let me know if I can answer any other questions or go into even more detail!

For the most part I take photos on a white background in two ways. The planchette purse ones were taken on a MyStudio background which is a white plastic corner thing that looks like this:

I got it on Amazon years ago after Skullery (ParliamentRook here on Tumblr) talked about using one. (the price has gone up there so maybe check other stores if interested)

However! I also just use large pieces of Bristol board paper, either flat on a table or with it taped or weighed down into a similar curved backdrop (running along a wall for the back and across a table on the bottom). Here's a pic of it flat:

And here's what that shot looks like on my phone:

Here's a picture of it kind of curved against the cat's bed instead of a wall:

Here's the final edited shot from my camera.

(I know these two samples don't show very much white background like the purse photos do, but I can't find too many photos that show the full setup as is, zoomed out. I've use the paper trick for a lot of my photos though, especially the embroidery hoop art pieces. You can use multiple pieces of large paper for large photo subjects by either erasing or editing out where one edge of the paper overlaps another.)

The big trick is to use natural - but diffused - light as much as possible! To the direct left of these photos is a huge living room window (the first sample photo is taken where the lamp is in the second). The folded white Bristol on the right side in both shots bounces the light from the window back across the photo subject.

As far as diffused light, it'll kind of depend on your region/location and windows. Bright but overcast/cloudy is best because the light is being softened through the clouds. Timing during different parts of the day/seasons can help too, like morning over midday. Sunny direct light can blow out details and cause sharp shadows. I'm personally having a difficult time getting good natural lighting for photography now in my current living situation because the light here is always so bright. The pictures of the purse and the sample pics above were all taken in Washington state. It was easier to get shots in winter/spring instead of summer. I feel like I developed a good photo style while living there and I can't quite capture light and color that way anymore unfortunately.

I'd recommend checking out all your windows and the way the light shifts throughout the day. At a friend's house, taking them right outside her garage door was the best and at previous place I lived it was out on the front patio.

This is one of my recent photo experiments using light indoors (there's a second bulb above just out of frame):

There's also ways to make simple lightboxes like this one (and this video gives a good visual for the curved paper backdrop I tried to describe):

youtube

As far as stats for other info, the camera I shoot with - besides my phone - is an old Nikon D50 with a 50mm f/1.8D fixed lens originally for shooting concert photography. My only other lens is broken, but the f/1.8 makes it great for low light as needed. (Lowering the f-stop also gives you that depth of field blur.) A tripod can be super helpful, especially if it's low light and you need to lower the shutter speed and use a timer. I shoot all my camera photos in RAW instead of JPG because it gives you way more options for photo editing before any adjustments in Photoshop. On my phone I use Afterlight for photo editing.

If you read this entire thing, thank you for sticking it out! And again, if anyone has any questions or if I can take sample pics or anything, feel free to drop me an Ask. <3

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illustratus · 10 months

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