I wasn't terribly happy with the last batch of photos I took of this pot earlier, so I changed out the lights in my photo set up.  This photo is taken with the old lights, a couple of 'super floods' from GE, which are something I got when a friend moved.  She had them as color correcting incandescent bulbs for her make-up mirror, and the bulbs are a blue color and burn VERY hot.  Average life expectancy on one of these is listed as 4 hours!  She worked on TV for a while, so was very concerned about this, and these bulbs are probably vintage by now!  Anyway, they work great for a lot of my colors, but on this little pot... not so much.  The actual pot is glazed with a brick red glaze, NOT a bright red as this photo shows.  The light level is good, but the color... meh, not really good. I adjust camera a bit and the photos require very little mucking about in photoshop.

THIS one is taken with a couple of 100 watt equivalent CFL Ottlights bulbs.  I had to tweak the  light levels a bit, these just don't put out as much light as the superfloods, but this is a much more accurate color for this pot!

So, I just wanted to show how much different lights can affect a photograph!  Our eyes and brain usually correct for this, so we don't notice, but the camera doesn't.  And these are both 'color corrected' specialty bulbs, not standard bulbs!  Standard bulbs would have even more variation between the different types available!

Ok, off to go take some more photos!

I've been asked how I take my photos, so I grabbed the camera off the tripod and took a shot of the set up.  Trust me, it really IS this ugly, but it lets me take pretty good photos!  The two clip lamps are clipped to a piece of 1x2 inch lumber hanging from wires in the overhead.  I don't say ceiling, because, well, its NOT.  At the moment the wires are hanging off a couple of clamps hooked onto the beams supporting my bedroom.  I'm working on my router table (covered with a blue tarp) and using an old sheet of 150lb rough watercolor paper as a background.  Its laying up against whatever is handy (in this photo its a packing box that eventually ended up in Hawaii).  The big thing is I position the two lights so there are no dark spots, and sometimes I raise the camera and shoot down, sometimes I crunch it all the way down to the bench level.  Every different type of piece requires resetting to get the best shot.  Sometimes I pull the lights back and make the light hit more from the front, other times I take one down and hold it in just the right spot.  Its a matter of looking through the camera so I can see what the shot will look like, and optimizing it with the best camera position, best light position, and sometimes even moving the subject to get it all just right.

Here's the shot you see set up above, unedited.  To USE this shot, I adjusted the angle slightly (1 degree clockwise) then cropped it so the subject takes more of the frame.   You can see the final shot here, this one is the center view in the third photo down, the one with 3 views. 

banded pot on Etsy

I didn't have to adjust the levels with this one as I played with the camera settings, but if I forget to do that I usually have to adjust it in the editing phase.   I use full spectrum OTTlite bulbs so the color is good, if you use standard florescent or incandescent bulbs, you might find your color wayyy off.  Incandescent bulbs tend to make your photos look yellow or orange, while florescent bulbs give you an ugly green cast. 

This big boy was hanging out between storms in the yard this week.  He's been around off and on for years now, I recognize him because his coat is a bit redder than most of the other deer in the local town herd.  His antlers have been a bit uneven in past years, this year they're more even than in the past.  Four spikes and a BIG eye-guard on each side, so most people around here would count him as a 5-point.  Blacktail, not a mule deer, so hes not as big as some of the inland deer. 

They're really neat to look at, but the wretched beasts do a heck of a number on the landscaping!.

Still sorting through photographs, but I guess I'll have to actually go TAKE some more to get the one I think I want for the banner...  I have a plaque I made using the coil technique that'll work great for the banner, and I know I HAD a photograph of it, but, well, its evaporated! 

I SHOULD go get some pictures of the new buttons so I can put them up on Etsy, I re-listed a few last night and they immediately got hits. 

Oh, wait, there's a theme here... guess its time to break out the camera.  I found a new sheet of watercolor paper to use for a backdrop, as the last one is rather... bedraggled...  Oh well, gotta dig out the lights, etc etc etc.  JOY! LOL