A Little Bit of Photography

I've never been one who self-identifies as a photographer, the majority of my friends and I were usually theater and music people, happy in that self expression of artistic nature rather than behind a lens screen. Photography was always Sibling-the-Elder's hobby and, like Agatha Christy novels and cobweb alpaca lace shawls, something I've been happy to leave to her. I'd rather model for her and if you ever see me give a presentation, you'll usually see her credited for at least one of the photos I use in my decks--frequently of my spoiled cats.

I do, however, own a heavily abused PowerShot SD1000 which has never quite been the same after the soaking it got in Hawaii in 2011.  The camera for me holds far more interest as a means to an end rather than an artistic tool. I'm less concerned with telling a story, as the Philosopher described a photographic goal, instead I'd like a true to color, reasonably interesting image that shows you whatever it is that I'm presently knitting. To that end, when Franklin Habit offered a recent class on Photographing Your Fiber at Murphy's Pub, I sprinted over to the website to sign up.  Yarn, a class taught by a friend, a chance to make my pictures a little more functional, and a full-service bar? Count me in!

Franklin's an excellent teacher, if you have a chance to take a class with him, I highly recommend it.  Also, Murphy's did quite well keeping us supplied with beverages (not too many though, we were trying to hold cameras steady!).

Sibling-the-Elder got me a light box kit for Christmas and this was the first time I'd had the chance to take it out of the box and do something with it. While I still have a lot of exploring to do, here are some of the photos I took during our exploration time during class.

I tried again to photograph the WendyKnits Mystery Shawl, as that's often proved difficult. The yarn, from FiberOptics, is incredibly bright and I've found it difficult to capture.



Taking color out of the photo was a way I'd not considered photographing the piece before.

Also, I learned that taking better pictures can show off every strand of cat fur that I've brought with me.



I finally got a true to color picture of the Philosofive Socks, which I've been recently told have been redubbed the Mating Iguana Socks.  I didn't realize iguanas became that vibrant during mating season but the socks are being worn and enjoyed so I don't worry too much about their title.



Finally, something Franklin said was that no one really cares about what a whole sock looks like, we've all seen them before, and that point really came home to me. Especially considering that I don't knit lace socks, it's rare that you'll need to see the full sock picture that I usually take in order to have a sense of anything except progress. It started me thinking about other ways I could show you the yarn, perhaps a little detail and maybe find something a little creative in it for all of us. (Hmm, there's creativity sneaking into these "better pictures of socks"....dangerous that). I ended up with this pic of the Ground Up Muppet Socks.



There are some other photos on Flickr if you click thru. My hope is to get to better use the functions on my camera and take at least slightly more thoughtful pictures.