Textile Photography

I joined SAQA recently and had my first Webinar. I holed up in the computer room, hogged the phone, and dialed in to hear Gregory Case talk about photographing textiles.

I take all of my own photographs — have for years — and have found that most instructional materials don’t cover the special topic of textiles. They photograph so differently from other medium — so I was thrilled to find this online class available through SAQA.

And I learned a lot. I’m fairly skilled at Photoshop, but he gave me a lot of helpful information about manual settings on my camera — all of which I put to use this morning. I finally finished Bull Dawg and needed to take pictures before sending it into its exhibition life — so I set up my camera and took what I think is the best textile shot I’ve ever made:

I’ve never taken a shot in which the quilting lines were so apparent. And the colors of the full view came out very true. I was so delighted!

I wish I could say the same of my detail shots — even placing the lights right next to the piece, they came out dark & the colors skewed. But Rome wasn’t built in a day. I may just need some more lights. I never realized how light hungry cameras are.