It DOES make a difference!!!

Wow! A week of experimenting and I believe , at last, we have liftoff! We have learned the following-

1- Lights make a HUGE difference- we have 250 W and 500 W blue photofloods and having photographed all the quilts using the smaller bulbs, we now have to redo a LOT of them! Just TOO dull and lifeless - stay tuned for photographic evidence!

2- We DO know now how to get a clean white ( or black) background for quilt photos. It works like a charm and DH should be VERY pleased with himself. I am :-)

3- Paper for printing makes an ENORMOUS difference ! I had my pics printed at Costco and they did them on matte paper- great , except that our pics were too dull and dark. I just found Satin Finish paper at Staples and bought a package of 100 sheets. GORGEOUS!! Now, I cannot afford to print all of my pics myself but for ones I want to be VERY clear and nice, I will always use satin paper now. Gloss is just TOO much. Matte is lovely if the colours are bright and right.

I have made up a sheet for each quilt , full of all the pertinent info- name, address , telephone number, title, materials used, techniques, date and notes for Artist's Statements. I also have ( or will have) a full shot of the quilt as well as several detail shots per quilt. Just bought a small binder and will have the sheets and pictures all organized alphabetically by title soon ( finished my teaching career as a Librarian !)

Now, for the evidence...

You remember this one! This is straight off the camera at the exposure indicated as correct by the camera.

Now , here are the three shots he took , first at normal reading, then at +1/3 and lastly, at +2/3 stops.

These shots have been edited for size and white background ONLY! No other editing.

The original exposure

At + 1/3 stop

And at +2/3 stop.

I have chosen the middle ground, the plus 1/3 stop. The + 2/3 is just washed out. 

We plan now to go back over the pile of quilts and redo the ones I feel are most important to me . It will take time but if it is worth doing at all, it is worth doing well! When I make my quilts, I choose my colours carefully and aim for "singing colours" - even the subtle ones! I want a glowing, jewel-like effect always and when I have a picture of my quilt, I want that singing colour too. The larger, brighter (500 W) bulbs have made a HUGE difference! We intend to buy a couple more pairs - just in case. Soon, we will be unable to buy them at all as they are incandescent tungsten bulbs.  They certainly DO generate a LOT of heat in this warm weather, but we must suffer for our art, no?

I see that this week is the 100th posting on TNTN and I will post this to the needleandthreadnetwork.blogspot.com in hopes that someone may find all of this rambling yammer useful. One of these days, I WILL get back to some actual quilt making. This little project was a gotta do for this summer though and it is almost done now ! Yay!!