Friend Friday

Welcome to Fashion Beauty Friend Friday.

Hosted by Modly Chic, it's an opportunity for fashion bloggers to share their thoughts on a specific topic and read what others have to say on that same topic.

Pop on over to Modly Chic to read more about it, see who's participating and read their answers too. Every week there are a new set of questions to answer, about various fashion, beauty and blogging issues. This week we discuss photography for blogging, the process behind it and the technology we use.

So here goes!

1. What technology do you use in blogging? My camera is a basic point-and-shoot digital, a 12 megapixel Panasonic Lumix. I'm happy with the results it gives for close-up product photography, but some functions are limited which can make fashion photography tricky. I have a little mini-tripod permanently attached, it's the most fabulous thing. Makes me look like a wanker walking around at events with it, but I don't care, it's the best thing ever to stop shaking hands and eliminate blurry shots.

An example of my product shots

2. What computer and online technology do you use? My computer is a laptop, a Toshiba Satellite i5. For blogging, as you can see I use blogger, it seems simple enough so I never bothered to investigate wordpress. To edit my photos I use Irfanview, which is a free download and pretty simple to use. I adjust lots of things on each photo as I'm used to doing it for ebay, so I'd never put unedited photos on my blog (to me, a hideous thought!). For following blogs I use Google reader, although I'm not mad on it. If you can suggest a better one, please do!

As yet I only use Facebook for personal and haven't used it for the promotion of my business. I was away the day they brought out Twitter...I'm not up to that yet. I think I'm the only one though.

3. What is your process for taking pictures? Depends what I'm photographing. As mine is not solely a fashion blog, the subject can vary enormously. If I'm photo'ing a small item for online selling, I use a light tent (light box), which is absolutely the totally best thing I have ever bought for photography so far.

 

With tricky, reflective items like the one above, I also use a big piece of cardboard with a sheet of alfoil over it, and hold this at various angles as necessary. Various black and white cards are sometimes placed around the object too...it depends what the sun is doing on the day. I usually hang a white sheet across the window next to the tent; the sun is so bright here that I need to do this to reduce the overall shadowing.

For fashion and event photography, I consider myself very much a beginner. I'm terrible at taking photos of myself so I usually wait until I have a friend available to help me. I prefer not to do the holding-the-camera-in-front-of-a-mirror thing.

4. When it comes to choosing backdrops for your photos what do you consider? Do you scout locations or use the same spot daily?
 For outfit shots I have yet to find a location that I'd be happy to use regularly. Lighting of course is the key....I'm improving with that, but I still have to learn more about this, as person-photography is so very different to product photography.

Sue took this one for me, one of our better efforts

 With product photography the tent is THE location, end of story. Even though I'm very confident with it, I'm still very fussy, and will sometimes take 40 or 50 shots of one item and move the tent around to get it just right.

5. If you could splurge and buy one new piece of equipment, what would it be? A tripod and a remote...or maybe a big professional studio setup with a huge backdrop and big lights. Then all my photos would be great!