Betty Botter read a blog and took a better photo

Tags

earrings, glow-in-the-dark, necklace, photography

It was quite a struggle to take photos of my glow-in-the-dark earrings because I had to use the manual settings on my camera. Fumbling around in the dark is not the best time to try to figure out ISO and aperture. So after uploading my photos on Friday I did a bit of research. I have been doing more with the manual settings and I think I’ve seen a huge improvement in my photos!

Earrings by Cate van Alphen

For some reason I had always thought that if the wibbly camera icon showed on the camera screen it meant there wasn’t enough light to take a decent photo. I knew higher ISO was for low lighting, so I’d up the ISO till the icon went away. It turns out this has the side effect of making the picture grainy. In the pictures above they have the same aperture, but the one on the left is ISO 400 and the one on the right (taken in worse light) is ISO 100. I think the second one looks cleaner.

Glow in the dark earrings by Cate van Alphen

It wasn’t completely dark when I started taking the glow-in-the-dark pictures, and although it was too dark for me to see the background, at the slower shutter speeds the camera could. So it turns out that instead of increasing the ISO for lower light, I just needed to use a tripod and a slower shutter speed! Doh!

I took some new pictures of a necklace I made back in 2010 using beads made from the same glow-in-the-dark cane as the earrings.

BEFORE

AFTER

Woah! You can literally spot the difference. From now on ISO 100 is my friend 🙂

You can find this necklace in my Etsy shop. I thought it might make a nice companion for the earrings.

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Making your background better

Tags

background, handmade paper, how to make paper, paper, photo backgrounds, photography

A while back, with the help of this blog post about photo backgrounds, I decided I needed to pep up my plain white cartridge paper backgrounds.

The photo on the right has a better sheet of paper which I think is warmer and more interesting, but it also looks like a fly has been rather busy! I had a scrap from a lovely sheet of handmade paper with wonderful texture, but…

I thought the purple inclusions were just too distracting. So I decided I needed to buy some handmade paper. Then I thought: “Hang on, I have hands, I can make paper!”.

I don’t think this is the proper way to make paper, but it works. 🙂 A few years ago, I even used this method to “paint” landscapes (excuse the retro quality of the photo).

Scatter a layer of torn up cotton wool squares and scraps of toilet paper or tissue on a sheet of sculpting mesh.

Then I separated the fibres from an off-cut of gold organza fabric and scattered these over the top. I think you could use strands of cotton thread if you don’t have fabric off-cuts lying about.

Repeat the layers of cotton, tissue and fibres several times until there are no holes.

Cover with a second sheet of mesh.

Now rub wallpaper paste through the holes of the mesh. Turn the whole lot over and repeat on the other side. You want to make sure that the glue saturates all the layers.

The next step is the most difficult – waiting for it to dry. Once it is dry, carefully peel off the mesh (try not to stab yourself on the edge of the mesh – no one actually wants to see the blood, sweat and tears on the finished creation).

While I was waiting, my little owls flew off to a new home, so I chose the next most neutral earrings I had to photograph with the new background.

There are a few hard edges from the cotton squares which I should have shredded more thoroughly. What do you think? Better?