I am participating in the Third Annual Knit & Crochet Blog Week (my second year). This week, each day will have a topic and those of us that are participating will write about said topic. The higher powers that be (i.e., the organizers) have thrown in a "Wildcard" topic, just in case there's a topic that just doesn't appeal to our tastes. So, without further adieu........
Photography Challenge Day!
Today challenges you to be creative with your photography, and get yourself in with the chance to win the photography prize. Taking interesting photographs in this instance isn't about flashy cameras or a great deal of technical know-how, it's about setting up a story or scene in a photograph and capturing something imaginative. Your photograph(s) should feature something related to your craft, so that might be either a knitted or crocheted item, yarn, or one of your craft tools. One example of setting a scene would be to photograph a girl in a knitted red cape walking through the woodlands with a basket of goodies, as in the Red Riding Hood tale, or you might photograph a knitted gnome hiding among the flowers in your garden. Photo editing is permitted for competition photos.
Let's discuss this challenge a bit before we get to the photos.
My crafting time is extremely limited. Many of the photographs I've taken of my knitting over the last year and a half have been done late at night while everyone else was asleep or during the brightest part of the day......when everyone else was asleep.
We have several cameras in the house. Husband has a Canon Rebel XT. It's a digital SLR that he's had for a few years. It works great and I love how photographs turn out...but it's his camera and I don't like using it to take photos of my knitting. Besides, I don't know where the cord is to hook it up to my laptop and get the photos from it. I'll use it to take photos of Little Man...but not of my knitting. In addition to the SLR, we have two point-and-shoot digital cameras. They're just...well, they're just your run-of-the-mill digital cameras from Walmart. I have used the older of the two but I don't use it that often to take photos of anything, least of all my knitting. Most of my photos come from my iPhone. I always have it on me so it's not much of an issue to photograph something. The problem? It's not the best camera I've ever used. If you don't use the flash, you're bound to the coloring of the light surrounding you (and when I'm photographing things in the living room at 11pm, the surround color is yellow light from the lamps).....and if you use flash, you have the problem of over-exposure.
Confused yet? Well........let's talk about what I'm getting at.
 |
| Little Man's first birthday party - November 2011 |
 |
| Little Man's first birthday party |
The above photos were taken with the SLR. Everything has a clean, focused look to it....probably because there's an auto-focus button (seriously one of my favorite features).
 |
| Little Man during the day, natural light, iPhone photo, no flash. |
 |
| Little Man, late-afternoon, iPhone photo with flash - over-exposed, see? |
 |
| Little Man, early evening, iPhone photo with no flash and room lighting - very yellow but not over-exposed (same day as the photo above it) |
Things vary greatly with my iPhone camera. It's good for quick things but if you want to take artsy fartsy photos, I don't recommend it. Husband will disagree with me about this. He's had photography training (his photography professor has a terminal degree, in this case an MFA, from the Rhode Island School of Design - RISD) and he says as long as you know the theories involved in "good" photography, you can take a good photograph with a crappy camera. I suppose this is true...but I take some really crappy photos with my iPhone.....but it serves it's purpose. He's taken some really good photos with his iPhone. I just don't know the theories, I guess.
Anyway, with all that said, let's take a look at my knitting throughout the last couple years.
Okay, so this isn't my knitting. This is a photograph of yarn p0rn that I took even before I was pregnant (so this was from the fall of 2009). It's of the "Cascade Corner" at my
LYS. Since this photograph was taken, they have remodeled and the corner is no longer a corner...but part of a wall. And no, this isn't all Cascade. The yarn on the left is Cascade. The yarn that is directly in front is Nashatua, I believe. Anyway, I took this with one of the point-and-shoot cameras (the older of the two since we didn't have the second one then). People wonder where my obsession with Cascade comes from. Um...hello?
Anyway, moving on to some of my stash photos...
 |
| Opal Yarns: Harry Potter - Tonks colorway |
 |
| Universal Deluxe Worsted - for my Doctor Who scarf |
 |
| Stitches Midwest 2011 Yarn Hoard - lots of sock yarn and some projects' worth and don't judge me! |
 |
| Ewetopia Fiber Shop - yes, blurry...but the colors are right! |
 |
| Araucania Itata Multy - socks, perhaps.... |
 |
| More Sun Valley Fibers - MCN Fingering, I think...Eat Your Greens (I have two of these) |
This is absolutely by no means even a dent into my stash. Okay, maybe the photograph from my Stitches Midwest 2011 hoard is a small dent.....but I have a lot of yarn. These are some that struck my fancy while perusing yarns. None of the photos are particularly "good" photos. They were taken, sans the Stitches hoard, for my stash page on Ravelry. I didn't need them to be "good" photos...I just needed photos so I had an idea of what I had without being forced to go looking in the bins. Some of those colorways are tricksy......
Anyway, on to other somewhat yarny goodness........
This, my minions, followers, and other assorted readers, is my spinning wheel. It's a Majacraft Pioneer that I purchased in February 2011. Currently, she's in the abyss that was my office. I bring her out once in awhile and make things.
See? I spin on occasion. This was BFL (I think) from Yarn Hollow. I picked up two four-ounce braids in two different, though similarly colored, colorways. One was Celtic something or other and the other was Irish something or other. I spun each braid into singles, plied them, and this was the result. You don't want to know about the colors the sink turned when I washed them...
The above two photos are more pretties for my wheel. I'll get around to these someday......
Oh, and my Nostepinne. What's a Nostepinne, you ask? It's a non-mechanical center-pull ball winder. Seriously. I currently have a skein of
Shelter wound onto this for my
Habitat hat. I haven't dared pull it off but it works out pretty well the way I'm using it. Sure, the yarn doesn't end up in a nice little cake like it would with a mechanical ball winder...but it's still nice to have when someone is napping and you have a noisy mechanical ball winder.
Now, let's talk about projects...or WIPs...or both...probably both. Or not. We'll see.
 |
| Lothlorien - test knit for Kasia - taken with my iPhone facing down toward my head |
So, apparently these were all FOs. A conglomeration of items intended for myself, others, and...well, just for fun.
Anyway, moving on.....WIPs and more FOs are coming up!
And now, more gratuitous photos of Little Man.......wearing many FOs (some of which do not belong to him, I might add).
 |
| Wearin' my Mama's hat... |
 |
| Snail Hat - it was intended for Little Man but it fits me...oops! |
Also, in case some of you remember what happened
last year during Knit & Crochet Blog Week 2012, this is what Little Man looked like whilst he was in the hospital.........
What a little chunky monkey......but he didn't seem to mind the fact that he had IVs hooked up. He was swinging and that was great. Also, he wouldn't sit still for nice pictures so almost every photo I took of him while we were in the hospital is blurry. ::sigh::
My, my........how things change.
I love your array of photos! I agree it can be hard to take good pictures that accurately portray color - and I think a lot of colors of yarn in general don't translate well onto the screen. but don't let that stop you, it's wonderful to see your pictures!
ReplyDeleteGreat selection of photos! What a cute-pie your Little Man is!
ReplyDeleteI wish I had a pro camera, but I do like my iPhone one; it's not bad for the most part, but yeah, I can see how it certain lighting it won't take such a great photo.
ReplyDeleteThat yarn porn...my eyeballs came out of their sockets like in the ol' Tom & Jerry cartoons. I seriously thought it was your stash!