More and More About Prints!!

Alright... For now, I've concluded that I don't quite have the means to produce prints on my own. But, for those who would like, I am making them available through Deviantart. If you go to http://rhiahna.deviantart.com/prints/?utm_source=deviantart&utm_medium=userpage&utm_campaign=printstab, you can find the photos I've made available to buy. I do get a small portion of the cost of the prints, but please don't feel obligated or anything, I'm mostly curious to see if it generates any interest.

Prior Planning Predicts Pitiful Results

Some things really just don't turn out like you plan.

I settled in last night after I got home from work, with the idea that I would try to update some of the photos of my pieces listed on Etsy, after reading a couple of articles the previous night on how to photograph crafts for sale. With this in mind, did I tear apart my mother's dining room, removing everything from the table and pushing it up against the wall, removing the mirror that stood in my way so I would have a nice, flat and smooth, unassuming neutral background.

Upon inspection of the sheet I had laid across the table, I decided that the wrinkles might be too distracting, so chose to iron it. Everything looked pretty nice once I was done, the lighting wasn't great but it seemed like it would do.... Only I found it took me about an hour and a half to settle on the right camera settings.

And that's when the fun started.
I managed to spill a glass of red wine across my nice clean white sheet-turned-tablecloth, followed by knocking off-balance the large collection of wine bottles on the bottle stand, which bounced off the glass table top and shattered it. My mom graciously helped me clean up the mess of glass (after observing the at-wits-end look on my face, I'd wager.) I gave up on the ironing the second time around, abandoned the first piece I was trying to photograph (it wasn't cooperating anyway--something about not being in the mood, and I could find it in it's trailer, I'm not sure.) Instead I made a nice little collection of four tea bowls of relatively similar size and coloring... when, I got about 2 shots in, and my battery promptly died.

I have, in fact, concluded at this point, that all the days in which I set out with a predetermined plan to take photographs, are instantly doomed to failure. Unlike my spontaneous grabbing of the camera for some perfect shots, the days or hours I set aside specifically for this purpose, seem to consistently yield few, if any, usable photographs. I have to say it's very annoying.

You see, this morning when I managed to get up a little earlier than necessary for work, and went back to the previous night's project, I managed to find some wonderful inspiration over a cup of coffee and some biscuits. I guess it's just funny like that. Ha ha ha.

(I actually prefer mine with cream and sugar. But shhh.)

Printing Green

Well... I'm sort of bummed. I was really hoping I could print my own business cards and things for ETH, and was looking for some more Eco-friendly ways of doing so. I was even thinking how great it would be if all of my packing slips and shipping papers could be on recycled paper, and if they made inks & paper suitable for Prints (as mentioned in my previous post), and was getting really excited about this whole idea... But after searching around all over the net for the past hour and a half, I have discovered.....

They don't make soy-based ink cartridges for home-use yet. Bah. I could probably find a printer to do my business cards on recycled paper with soy-ink, but it would cost me a lot more.

I hope the industry catches up soon, because I want to be able to use it! Petroleum-based ink sucks, not to mention the fact that soy-based has much brighter colors!

In other news... I now have a Flickr! http://www.flickr.com/photos/earthtreesandheather/

I took a whole bunch of pictures yesterday in a huge flurry of inspiration, and decided I should probably set up a separate account specifically for things connected to ETH. I'm thinking of taking a small sampling and testing how they look as Prints (even in despite my disappointment about printing in general). They'll probably need a little retouching, I'd like at least a couple in black & white, and we'll see how it goes!