When I first began photographing my finished objects, I used a small dress form. I didn’t really like those pictures, because the form is not sized like an adult. It’s really just a decorative item, and not a real dress form. It didn’t give proper scale to anything I wanted to show. However, I was still living way out in the country, and it was all I had. I chose to make the best of what I had available as opposed to not doing anything at all.
Who can tell how large that piece is without benefit of a human in the frame? There’s no way to accurately judge the size and scale of the object. This was ok when I was just taking pictures of my work to say, “Hey! Look what I made!” But it’s really not a professional way of showing work. I was still learning at this point. I also did not understand the importance of blocking, and I had not progressed to having even stitches. This is one of the first things I made, so I will give myself a break!
I also did not respect the importance of color calibrating my monitor and using color checker cards to ensure color accuracy in the editing process. Hence I had out of control issues in anything with reds in the spectrum. But I digress. Color management and space is a topic of conversation for another day. Or a couple of weeks….
Today we are talking about why I work with models, and why I believe they make for better pictures of knitwear. Here’s my Speedline shawl when it was still in an unfinished state. We call that a WIP in crafting circles. It means Work In Progress. This is clearly a stylistic improvement over that first picture, but we still don’t really know how large or small the shawl is.
Now, let’s take a look at that same shawl as a finished object (we call that an FO) on my lovely model, Kelly.
What an improvement! We can really see how large the finished piece really is, and how well it drapes. This shows not only the pattern and what a knitter could expect, but what the properties of the yarn are like. This looks soft and drapey, and that is appealing to a knitter contemplating a shawl pattern. It would be appealing to me, anyway.
These two pictures are just about identical angles. While I think the still life picture of the lonely shawl hanging in the woods is a nice enough picture, I don’t think it has the same interest as the picture of Kelly wearing it. When putting together a campaign of images for a client, I really think a mixture of photography is a great way to go. But I would never cut out the pictures on a model. If we could only photograph something one way, I would definitely recommend the photography be done on the model.
One of the great joys of living in Virginia Beach again, is the proximity to beautiful public spaces for photography and a huge population of models. I have met so many wonderful ladies and gentlemen since I moved back home. There are so many lovely people to work with here, and I’m looking forward to a new year of working with both familiar and new people.
