Make It

I Want More

I adore everything Maria Vessette does, so of course I'm crazy in love with the new website and blog for her creative studio, More & Co.

It's filled with lots of amazing behind the scenes (and food) photos, as well as a look at her collaboration with bloggers Stephanie Congdon Barnes and Brian Ferry for a Starbucks campaign that actually makes me want to drink Starbucks. Read how that collabo came about here.

Street Fashion Photography - Past and Present

 

Via The Sartorialist, this trailer for a movie about the life and work of the New York Times' Bill Cunningham, the photographer behind the recurring "On The Street" feature. He sleeps in his studio? Really?

In other Sartorialist-related news, here's an NY Mag feature on him and his girlfriend/fellow fashion blogger Garance Dore.

More Eye Candy From 20x200

I told you I was obsessed. Reykjavik. Balloons. The bottom photo would make an amazing book cover.

Happy 2011, By The Way

Photo from the insanely talented Paul Octavious aka Dunny aka the photographer behind one of my all time favorite 20x200 editions (I have become SO obsessed with that site lately). His Flickr stream will suck you in, consider yourself warned.

A Hundred Jonathon Livingstons

Eventually, I want to write about how writers can use Creative Commons licensed images for their online promotions. But today, I simply want to share this photo from K. Hurley, which is available for commercial use and to modify. I stumbled across this shot while trying to find a photo for a new online portfolio of my writing related stuff.

Tiltshiftmaker

Hours of fun to be had at www.tiltshiftmaker.com. This is the feature that's often used to make cityscapes look like little toy cities, like this. But you can apply it to any kind of photo to get a kind of fuzzy halo effect.
Before:

After:

Camera Info

Several of you have asked about the new camera I'm using. It's a Canon Powershot S5 iS. We got it "refurbished" via Amazon from a vendor called Warehouse Deals,  which was a great deal because it was cheaper, in perfect condition, and still came with all the original packaging and manuals. My camera that I used to use is a Canon Powershot SD200 digital Elph that I got for Christmas 04.

Also,  in the interest of full disclosure, I did use a little photo editing software on the notecard photos. So they didn't go straight from the camera to the blog. It was especially hard to get the navy dots to look right. I don't really have any method for editing photos. This tutorial on the Switchboards was a good starting point. Mostly I just click around in things that say "curves" or "color saturation" until it looks the way I want it to.

I use GIMP which is a free alternative to Photoshop. I'm a big fan. One day, if I get my act together, I want to write a guide for all of the free Open Source software that you can use for your biz in place of the - expensive!- Adobe suite. There are free versions of Dreamweaver (NVu, which I use), many vector drawing programs that can stand in for Illustrator and more. Luckily I live with my techie boyfriend who can help me find and use these programs, but I don't know if I would have found them on my own.

What a difference a new camera makes

I took a bunch of pics this morning with Matt's new camera. I think it makes quite a difference in product photography.

New custom work to show you

I have to say I am surprised at how many of you like the green print on charcoal paper from the post below. Sometimes I think my ideas can run a little conservative or boring, so when I try something different (and in this case, totally unplanned), it's good to get positive feedback.

I'm pleased to show you a peek at one of the patterns designed by Elisabeth at Black  Pearl Press that I silkscreened and delivered to her earlier this week. The photo is by Elisabeth, via the Frolic blog, where she's been guest blogging this past week (I highly recommend checking out her post on purchasing vintage stamps). I love this print and the large scale of it means that when you wrap a gift you see a different view on each side. I was hesitant about the orange paper when she first suggested it (there goes my conservative nature again) but now I love it.

I also really like how she photographed this. I've tried both approaches to photographing wrapping paper in my Etsy store: photographing the flat paper and photographing a wrapped package. I also visit other sites to see how others do it. Photographing the flat paper is much easier and faster than wrapping a package, but it doesn't have the same "umph" as a nicely presented package. I think this picture has convinced me to start taking pics of wrapped packages again. This photo makes ME want to buy  this!

GIMP Your Way to High Quality Photos

Here is a great tutorial on how to use GIMP to acheive professional-quality product photos. High quality photos are key for attracting customers to your online store. GIMP is a free photo editing software that I use and is available for download here. [Via]