How I Take Blog Pictures

I have seen many posts on the Cricut message board asking how to take nice pictures of projects to post on the board or to blogs and thought for today I would post how I take pictures instead of posting pictures of a project.

I use to be a photography major in college and I was the assistant editor of my school newspaper and knew all kinds of stuff about how to take awesome pictures, but let's face it folks...that was over 25 years ago and all that knowledge has gotten lost in my brain cells some where along the way. Oh I know it's still floating around in there but there is new information going around that my brain seems to find more important in my life at this point. Like how to assess for suicide, if anger is masking depression, if red and purple can make a great combo on a layout, if a Cricut can cut very thick chipboard, if Lucy likes rawhide treats or Alpo treats better, if....well as you can see my brain has been taken over by important matters that are current in my life at this time.

Now what was I talking about *okie closes her eyes and tries to think what she was posting about and suddenly the most recent episode of Modern Family pops into her head and she cracks up laughing about Cam falling into the little pool and popping it*. OH YEAH!! How to take decent pictures!!

We all know the best lighting is natural sun light, correct? But guess what...we can't always have natural sunlight for our projects! Sometimes it is raining, sometimes it is cloudy, and sometimes if you live in Oklahoma your project might get blown 3 blocks down the street by a high wind. I came up with a solution for me that didn't involve buying any special equipment, making any other purchases, or cost a single extra dime!

I got three wire squares left over from the wire cubes I had and use to use for storing my paper. They now store other things and this is why I had some squares left over. I thought this would make a good base for a background. I used a few zip ties to bind them together and left them a little loose so I could fold the three squares together when not in use. This saves room.

You could easily use cardboard or something else, but I am just showing you what I use and trying to point out that we don't have to go out and buy something.




I knew I needed a white background so colors would show well and something about balance *okie tries to dig off into her brain cells about photography but gives up because she doesn't want to get a headache*. I didn't want to go buy a sheet or material so I thought about what I had around the house. Sure enough in my stash of sewing supplies I found some quilting batting. And yes, I can quilt, I can sew and I can do many many other things, but we will save all that info for another post.





Now about the lamp. I got this fabulous Sunlight Lamps of America lamp from Walmart a few years back and it is A to the W to the E SOME! *okie wonders if everyone understands that she was trying to really emphasize the awesomeness of the lamp*. It is able to bend, swivel and tilt so it makes it wonderful to be able to move around and get the lighting on your projects how you want.




I do use different items to prop up layouts, most often my Big Bite. I use cart boxes or Stampin Up clamshells to put cards or altered items on to lift them off the table, just sliding them under the batting. I sometimes stack items to get the different heights. I take picture with the normal setting and when I want a close up I use the macro setting on my camera. I don't use an expensive camera either. I just have a little Canon PowerShot A470 that I got about two years ago.

So ya see folks, ya don't have to be a professional photographer to get decent pictures of your projects, ya just have to use a little ingenuity and a little digging around the house to find the right set up.