Photography Is Not My Art

I keep trying to channel Irving Penn or some other talented photographer when it comes to photographing my products.  You see, photographs are of the utmost importance when it comes to craft/art show applications and of course Etsy listings.  I don't have a knack for the art of photography and learning how to capture true colors and providing adequate and flattering lighting has been a struggle.

A couple of things I took the time to learn have been quite valuable for me.  (First of all let me say the trick to learning these things is taking time.  For pete's sake, learning everything even a simple digital camera can do will take hours to learn, especially if one is not familiar with photography to begin with.)

One thing I discovered about my photography is that I have a talent for taking blurry pictures even when using a tripod.  The first trick I learned is to use the camera's timer.  Click the shutter after the timer is set for as short as two seconds, step back, and let the camera do the work.  No blur.  Yay!

Another thing I discovered is to pay special attention to your background.  See the following photo ~ it's lovely, except for that laptop in the background.  So sorry, but when you see this listed soon in Etsy you will also see the background, so please try to overlook it.  I'll correct it on my next photo shoot.

Another technical trick I learned was to set the white balance.  This is easy to do and makes for true colors in your photos.  I'm sure all cameras are different so I won't go into detail on how to set the white balance.  Just look up "white balance" or "custom white balance" in the index of your camera's owner's manual and you'll see how easy it is.  And it works wonders.  No need to donk around with photo editing and risk a misleading representation of your work.

I still have a long way to go, but I'm feeling much better about listing more candles in my shop.  Taking some time to set up the candles with nice little props, as well as knowing how my camera works is paying off.  If I learn any other fun tricks I'll be sure to keep you posted. 

Do you have any tips for me?