How I take project photos

One thing the popular craft, design, and sewing blogs all have in common is good photos and I know that's probably the first thing that draws most of us to a website.  But don't have the best camera (more on that in a minute) and I'll be the first to admit my photos don't always live up to my own expectations. Especially when winter hits here in Michigan and I post dark, grainy photos of my creations that look like they were taken in a cave. Which they pretty much were since the sun doesn't make it up to this latitude for about four months and I begin to feel like a deep-sea creature with no eyes.  And can I say, I appreciate the fact that if you guys even notice, at least you have the good manners not to mention it.So I have a few photo tricks.  This is one of them:

For taking pictures of smaller things like kids' clothes or purses, I use a piece of 20"x30" foam core poster board for my photo background (you can usually get a piece for about $1 at most craft stores). I think having a plain background is half the battle.  For larger garments I put two side-by-side and edit out the line in the middle.

I prop the board up next to a window or open door to get as much natural light as possible.  If it's a rainy or dark day, I wait until nicer weather comes along.  I prefer not use flash much because it makes the object look overexposed and often distorts the color.

And then I take about ten pictures.  After editing the best one a little in iPhoto (cropping, brightening, sharpening, upping the exposure), here's what I end up with:

(By the way, if you didn't see that post about the green jumper, it's here)And now a few words about my camera. UPDATED (8/12): I no longer use this powershot camera; I bit the bullet and bought a DSLR last summer)

The often annoying but overall pretty nice Powershot S5 IS

I don't happen to own a DSLR camera like many of my online blogger comrades; in fact I'm currently using a point-and-shoot (Canon Powershot S5 IS) if you must know.  While I don't want to necessarily recommend this camera, it does do a good job (nice zoom, great pictures outdoors) and I am generally happy with the results. However, I will say that there is one feature especially that drive me completely bazonk. It has this annoying habit of expelling the lens cap whenever I am not physically holding it on. When I set it on a table, the lens cap falls off.  When it's hanging around my neck, the lens cap falls off.  And you can forget about taking it out of a purse or bag; the lens cap is. always. off. So...if you can stand having to repeatedly put the lens cap back on over and over and over, this is the camera for you, haha!  Mr Rae assures me that there is a new DSLR coming out soon that sounds pretty great so I am holding off for that. I'll let you know what happens with that.Anyway, I hope this post was helpful. Sometimes it's just nice to see what other people are doing behind-the-scenes.