In Which the Pirate Takes Pictures.

Day Three: Experimental Photography And Image Handling For Bloggers.

Every Year Knitting & Crochet Blog Week tries to feature at least one day where photography takes a key role, because it has been proven many times that what captures reader’s attention for the first few seconds to hopefully hold them long enough to invest the time to read your words is your pictures.

It is easy enough to fall into a routine of photographing your finished projects as is – clearly displayed, maybe from a few varying angles, and for a large part of the time these are what blog readers will expect to see, but every now and again it is good to throw in a picture that causes people to linger.

Refresh your skills at creating attention-grabbing pictures. Take your own creativity and run to your camera with your own ideas, or use these few easy ideas as a starting point:

Use a few background props – you will be amazed at what you can find around the house if you just pick a few items up without thinking too hard about it. These can be props that either add to the ‘story’ of the photograph or just chime well with the colours and style of the finished object.

I’ve never been quite as creative with my pictures as some, but I really like macro shots.

This heathered BFL reminds me of the storm that rolled through yesterday evening. As the front crossed over the mountain, the temperature dropped ten degrees in five minutes. The clouds twisted, lightning flashed, and thunder came so close that the house shook. (Kipling hid under the dining room table. Floyd squawked to me about the disturbance until it passed. He may have even indignantly stamped a paw once or twice.)

My camera refuses to acknowledge the brightness of this pink yarn. I’ve tried changing the lighting, the angles, the time of day, the settings on the camera – and still, nothing really comes close to showing off how saturated the colours truly are.

A more loosely-spun tweed in an alpaca/merino blend shows up much more true to its real life shade:

Jaywalker in progress. I’m knitting with Austermann Step that I bought a million years ago. It’s slow going, partly because of the extra stitches (to accommodate the biased fabric, if you’ve never knit a Jaywalker) and partly because I’ve only been knitting a few rounds at a time just before bed. Slow and steady, and eventually I’ll have pink and gray Jays.

The third and final part of the spinning commission is well underway, this time in blues and greens. It’s a merino/nylon blend from Mulberry Fibers, and I’m enjoying every moment of spinning it. Once this is done, I might take a break from spinning to focus on knitting until the Tour de Fleece begins in July.

Floyd T. Underfoot, on the other hand, doesn’t like macro shots. Actually, he doesn’t like having his picture taken at all. I’m amazed that he held still enough for me to get one decent picture, even if it seems a little underexposed. A black cat against a black couch… yeah, there’s a recipe for a dark picture.

I only got one chance. As soon as I moved the camera to change settings, he was off.