Photo'ing Quilts

Yes, that IS an old quilt photo -below-!!! It was given to a neighbor, who was expecting, way back when we lived in Ohio. My husband is holding it up and that is my, now 8yo, little girl in the picture. {She's two in that shot.} So that's a pretty solid HOW NOT TO DO photo. I'm not claiming the one I got today is a "how to do it," though. It is better, though.

Taking good pictures of a finished quilt or quilt top is proving to be increasingly more tricky than I thought it would be. I've surfed around to find a handful of great tips on how to get a good shot- On of my favorite tips pages is over on this site- Shoot That Quilt, part of Holly Knott's page. There are some GREAT tips on there.

I did read on the AQS website also on tips for photos...

Ultimately I went with the "early morning light, outside" approach. Of course, its better to also not have tops of your assistant's head or fingertips in the shot too... Hum... The wheels are turning.

I just got this (next) quilt back from my machine-quiltin' momma- Karen's Quilting Service. It looks great. I drafted and made the original design not too long ago. I wanted to do a quilt that had 3 different sized Friendship Stars and 3 different sized Flying Geese. And looked scrappy. I think it turned out ok. And as a newly finished quilt in my stash- I needed some photos!

So this morning I go outside to see what, around my house, is going to be tall enough for me to hang or display my quilt on?? We have a short fence, and that wasn't going to work out. The house is brick... so I couldn't attach it TO the house.... OR could I??? I decided I would have the quilt free hanging from only the top edge- near the back patio. I thought I'd attach the quilt with staples (GASP) along the dark binding edge- right beneath the rain gutter. Well, I go out and have everything I need only to find that my house is covered in aluminum siding, and the part I was going to staple into was actually metal....

Keep looking. At 7:30a, I'm toolin' around the house- literally, around it, to see if there are any other places. As luck would have it, the header around the garage door was WOOD... now was it tall enough??? Ah yes. Whooohooo. I was hoping to be a little more discrete during the "drive to work" hours of the day...

Yeh, that's subtle. =)

As you know, I LOVE photoshop. BUT these photos are not color edited or cropped in any way. I just want to see how the *real* picture would turn out. I think I need a little more light. Maybe the next photo shoot will be later in the day. Anyway- here they are:





I suppose I need to learn a bit more about "blocking" my quilt before I have it free hanging from the garage. I do like these pictures MUCH better than the one I took in my house, when the quilt was just a top-

Now here's the cropped image. I did not mess with the colors- but I bet you already guessed that. The white and off-white mixed backgrounds REALLY shows up in natural light.



Much practice will follow, I'm sure. Oh, and those pictures are quite large, so if you click on them they'll be HUGE on your computer screen.

Now, that I've finished the photos (for something entirely NOT market related)- I've got more work to do getting ready for Houston! Have a great day! ~jen~

Photo'ing Quilts