Sewing With Nancy

Have you ever photographed your finished quilt projects to show off your sewing skills or to share those images on social media? If you're like me, you probably wish that those images were better composed, or you had a little sharper look to them. At the Quilt Expo in Madison, Wisconsin, I had the opportunity to interview an expert on how to take better quilt photos. I know you'll appreciate her tips just as I did. I would imagine many of you have taken pictures of your quilt projects. But how many of you wish you had a little extra insight on how to do it properly? Well, with me today is Meg Cox. Meg Cox is a quilt journalist and has great dos and don'ts for taking pictures of quilts. Welcome to Sewing With Nancy, Meg. Thanks, Nancy. Nice to be here. Now, you have many guidelines on talking about quilts, and there's the informal quilt and the formal quilt portrait. Right, well, there are so many reasons why we want to be able to take good pictures of our quilts. We want to share them on social media. We want to share them with our friends. We want to maybe make a pattern. We want to preserve, you know, images of the things that we've made. To document it. 'Cause we give away so many of our quilts. But the thing to know is that there's two different basic kinds. There's an informal quilt portrait that you would take for social media or just to document or whatever, and that, you don't have to have every inch showing. You don't have to have it perfectly straight. You can have it-- sort of style the shot and have it over-- draped over a chair or have somebody sitting on it, or you want to have a-- tell a little story with it. But a formal quilt portrait is, if you were entering a contest, you have to, you know, have a really good picture. To sell it. - Yes, you have to-- And if you put all your heart and soul and creative juice into that quilt, you want somebody to see it instantly. Right. So that formal quilt portrait has to show every inch of the quilt. It has to be absolutely straight. Square. - It has to be-- The colors have to be true. You don't want to have shadows or--or bars of light or anything like that. And so, how do you-- how do you do that? Mm-hmm, so first, your equipment. Right, well, part of it is your equipment. And I like to tell people that, although for, you know, the informal shots, it's great to use your cell phone, this is one of the best tools a quilter ever had. Sure. - For lots of reasons. But, you know, you can get-- there's a really good reason-- you do not have to get a $600, $1,000 DSLR camera. You can get a point-and-shoot digital camera like this. Costs a lot less than an expensive smartphone, as it turns out. Yes, right. For less than $300, you can get one that is gonna take great pictures and give you a lot more control... Okay. - Over the image. So some hints? - Some hints. So, um, if you're gonna take that formal quilt picture, either put it on your design wall or get some kind of a rack, and do not have busy stuff going on behind. Sure. Just have a solid color or, you know, just white or black or something. And then you want to have lighting that really gives an even light across the quilt. And the most important thing is, you want to shoot right smack...

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In the middle. - Mm-hmm. It's best to have a tripod, and those are not expensive, so you don't have camera shake, and you shoot right in the middle, and then all the corners will be squared, and you'll have this nice image. Now, there's one great website that I have found that is perfect for quilters, and I'd just like to share it. It's called Shoot That Quilt! -

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It's a website put together by a photographer and a website designer, and that will give you ideas about where to find the right lights, how to do a really inexpensive setup with the lights, and so forth, lots of good advice. Now, Meg, there are some befores and afters, goods and bads of-- in closing, give us some hints of how people have-- how you've improved. Right, okay, well, this isn't a picture. This is actually from a blog. Amy Smart is her name-- Diary of a Quilter. And she shared with me some of her early bad shots, and you can see, they're in direct sunlight, so--you can see the top of her head. The color's washed-- you don't even know if that's a good quilt, right? Right. - Because it's so washed out. And here's the better one. - And here's the better one. She has gotten to the point now where she does not shoot in the bright light. She doesn't put the quilt smack in the middle. She makes an interesting setting. She has got a digital camera, so she's not just using her phone here. So she has more light. She has more control. She's paying attention to the composition of the picture, and it's night and day. Anybody can do that. Well, Meg, thanks. These are some great tips, and I know I need some tips on doing this, so thanks for sharing with us, and maybe you'll be back again soon sometime. I would love it. Thank you. Thank you. - Thanks a lot. Special thanks to Meg Cox for sharing her practical advice on photographing quilts. Remember that you can re-watch this episode of Sewing With Nancy, plus several seasons of programs online at NancyZieman.com. While you're there, join the community of fellow sewing and quilting enthusiasts by joining my Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter sites. Next time on Sewing With Nancy, be inspired to make other quilt projects with precut bundles. Thanks for joining me. Bye for now.