Tuesday, July 15, 2014

No Pictures Allowed!

It seems strange to write a post about photography without pictures, but today I finally photographed SW5 Big Green Diptych (my  online dictionary does not recognize this word, but it means two pieces of art joined by a hinge).  I have always photographed my own quilts and have been accepted into some top shows that way, but today I was having problems and I almost called in a pro.  But I kept at it.  I have a photography "studio" in my garage.  That means that I have a big foam core board covered with black velvet with gray felt on top of that, depending on how dark or light the quilt is.  Today I went with the gray.  I have professional lights and a tripod for my camera.

One trick is getting the lights in the right spot so that you don't get hot spots.  Then you have to make sure that your camera is at the same height as the center of your quilt.  And your camera has to be perfectly level. I have a small level on the tripod, which is good for knowing the camera is level from left to right, but none for whether the camera in level up and down.  So I took many, many shots, eight or ten at a time, then ran up to my studio to download them and see if I got it right.  I know that my quilt is perfectly squared off, but if the angle of the camera is wrong, you get a parallelogram, not a rectangle.  Arghhhh!!  Frustration, but I finally got it right.  I actually used my iPone for the details and they came out great.

But I am reminded of the bad old days when you had to send in slides.  You had to buy the expensive film (remember film?), take 36 shots, send them off to be developed (also expensive) and hope you got two or three that were decent. Sometimes you wouldn't and you'd have to do it all over again.  Digital is soooo much better.

So I filled out the digital entry online, uploaded the two photos, one of the over-all quilt including the edges and one detail to show the stitching, filled in the part so they could get my $45 from my Visa for the entry fee and hit SEND. BTW that's $45 per quilt. You can enter up to three. The entry deadline is Sept. 12 and I will find out a couple of weeks after that.  I think I deserve a glass of wine!
Or chocolate!




4 comments:

Cindy Green said...

Yay! Good luck to you! Yes, celebrate!

LA Paylor said...

I miss slides. I knew how to take them, they didn't skew the way digital does, I never know if their monitors will have the same colors mine shows, and I am not good with computer formatting. The other side from you. LeeAnna Paylor

Linda M said...

I think you need both the wine and chocolate! Good job getting everything done way ahead of the deadline.

Heather Pregger said...

Wow, you're way ahead of me! My potential entry isn't quilted yet.

I'm impressed that you do your own photography. I do mine as well, but I know it's not good enough for shows like QN.

Enjoy the wine and the chocolate!