Test pattern quilts

[AlwaysOnAuto]

Shot these yesterday in the blazing sun.

[Wavelength]

So nice; whose handicrafts are these?

[madcrow]

A great blaze of colour and patterns. Well spotted, good shots.

[AlwaysOnAuto]

These are the work of my wife Nandakumar. She has me take pictures of her work so she can put it in a scrap book she keeps.
The second one is made from old ties, like what you'd wear with a suit.

[bje07]

nice colors

[RList]

Perhaps to cut edges and make a kind of patchwork. Try, it would be really warm, good mood.

[Stagecoach]

Shot these yesterday in the blazing sun.

I would suggest you are not doing them the justice they deserve Alan, the harsh lighting blowing areas out and lack of sharpening.

This one I dropped the highlights and sharpened to give an example of what detail could be bought out.


This one just sharpened to give an example of what detail could be bought out.


Are you able to shoot these earlier in the day/evening if you are not getting some friendly clouds around? The angle of the lighting can also assist in enhancing detail.

[AlwaysOnAuto]

Grahame - I'll be the first to admit that most, if not all, of my photos could use a good going over by someone who is more proficient with software than I am. I am more of a 'straight out of the camera' type guy.
My wife suggested I shoot them the other day when it was sunny and warm out. She is a seamstress, as you can see, not a photographer. So suggesting to her that I wait for a cloudy day wouldn't have gone over too well, if you catch my drift. That being the case I tried to do the best I could under the circumstances.
Thank you for the suggestions on making them better representations of her work. I will be going over them again before I turn the files over to her for printing.

[Stagecoach]

I can so relate to some of that Alan.

My partner makes greeting cards and decorated bottles, most of which go to her work friends.

I regularly get the request to photograph them, which is often followed by;

Why do you need to get your tripod out?

What do you mean that background is no good?

Why do you have to put them there?

Can't you just download them to my folder so that I can email to XXX now?

What do you mean it will take you a while to finish them, blimey you have just photographed it?

And then the crunch...............................

With all the time you spend doing photography I can't understand why you still have to take so long

[Ziggy]

Your wife is very talented. I know these take time to create.

[purplehaze]

My sympathies for all your trials, Alan, but your wife's work definitely deserves to be shown off. As an admirer of quilts and quilting, I wouldn't mind seeing a few close-ups of the squares as well. Should I be ducking? Tell me, does your wife do both the piecework and the quilting?

[Jimr1961]

Alan, if you're going to be doing this a lot (happy wife, happy life), maybe a 10' x 20' canvas driveway cover, in the driveway, would be in order. You can park the car under it and have an enclosed space to help control lighting. I had one in my back yard for years. I used it as a shade house for about 600 orchids.

[cichlid]

These are great. The color rendition seems spot on. Did you make use of some form of light modifier to get such even lighting?

[AlwaysOnAuto]

Thank you Jim from Ohio. Yes, they do take some time to put together.

Grahame - it never gets quite that bad around here, but almost. Usually it's more the 'Is this the best you can do with all that expensive camera equipment you've got?' Hence, I'm trying harder.

Janis, she does the whole thing. About the only thing she doesn't do is the designing itself. She will buy a pattern and change the color scheme to make it her own and occasionally will make small changes to the exact way it's put together, but that's about it. She does all the embroidery/applicay work herself as well as the quilting which is done both on a big quilt frame or by hand on her mechanical sewing machine. I say mechanical, but all sewing machines are mechanical only some are computer driven, which she has also. I'll try to get some shots of the squares as the real work is in the details which are hard to see in these shots.

Jim from SoCal - our driveway is out front and sloped pretty good so I'm hesitant to do anything out there. We do have some easy-ups now but with the setup I'm using the quilts wouldn't fit under them since they are so big.

[AlwaysOnAuto]

Erik - just good old fashioned sunlight was used.

[Wavelength]

I was almost sure that they were the works of your wife. I wanted to appreciate those works; they require much patience and consistency to create such beautiful works; so let her know my congratulations
Regards

[IzzieK]

Grahame, your post reminded me of an article about a husband who decided one morning to nag at his wife while she was cooking breakfast...as he asked her non-stop many questions like why did you crack those eggs like like? Is that how you really do it? What about the bread? Why do you butter them like that? Shouldn't you invert them and butter them underside instead? and so on and on he nagged on until the wife had enough of him and shouted at the top of her voice over his and annoyingly asked her husband why he was bullying her...His response? -- I am just giving you back what you do to me whenever I drive...anyway, the husband is still alive to tell the tale...

I can so relate to some of that Alan.

My partner makes greeting cards and decorated bottles, most of which go to her work friends.

I regularly get the request to photograph them, which is often followed by;

Why do you need to get your tripod out?

What do you mean that background is no good?

Why do you have to put them there?

Can't you just download them to my folder so that I can email to XXX now?

What do you mean it will take you a while to finish them, blimey you have just photographed it?

And then the crunch...............................

With all the time you spend doing photography I can't understand why you still have to take so long

[IzzieK]

Alan I remember asking you about your wife's sewing/quilting machine...so this is her latest work...tell her they are very pretty. I was already thinking of the necktie shots that you must be running out of neckties when she did that one...I like them all the designs I mean...what does she do with them all?

[Kaye Leggett]

Alan - you are both talented.

Perhaps as your wife takes so much care and time in the quilting you could gently suggest you want to put the same care into your photographs of her work.

The other option is to just take a shot, rubbish lighting/confused background/blown highlights etc. etc and then take 'your' shot and ask which she likes best.

And another option is to anticipate her request - get in first and ask to photograph a quilt but before asking, get your set up sorted so it takes 'less' time on your wife's eyes.