More Adventures in Photo Styling: Rustic Wood Planks

I have found myself lately captivated by logs in our woodpile. There is so much recorded in the growth rings, the peculiar places where a branch emerges from the trunk, the darker striations of bark like wisdom lines in a human face. The shapes and textures inform my ceramic work at deep levels beyond a conscious choice to illustrate. There is just a delight and fascination  in picking up each log that emerges with no effort at all in the organic shapes of my trays or the combed facets on mugs and vases.

I decided to use a rustic wood plank as a styling board, and went to Asheville Hardware to look through their selection of slab wood and reclaimed lumber. The selection is intoxicating! From beautiful slabs of maple, poplar, oak and cedar to reclaimed barn doors, vintage flooring, and bins of scrap wood to rummage in. Half a day later I selected a slab that my husband has lovingly hand sanded. It is not yet stained nor oiled but I’ve already begun shooting pottery on it. Plus planning several future purchases!

If you are planning to use rustic wood planks as a table centerpiece or styling board, look through the thinner slices because wood is pretty heavy. You can use the pieces that aren't as prized for tabletops and shelving because irregular shapes, holes, and knots are visually interesting. Personally I love love love the bark left on. You can spend as little as $10 for an unsanded piece that is quite wonderful, or as much as $600 for a finished piece of the same size and quality so you can save a bucketful with a bit of DIY. Also, Asheville Hardware’s prices were 1/3 of what I found on Ebay, so definitely visit them if you are in Asheville. Or hunt down a similar store selling rustic planks and reclaimed lumber.

Here are my initial results:

 

I want to thank my husband, my most incomparable love, for his help. Besides sanding my rustic board, Ken is the gardener whose flowers give life to my vases. He also dropped my off at the opening weekend of Trader Joes where a parking place was nonexistent and the traffic was slightly insane so I could buy the little squash and other food staging necessities. He then parked blocks away. I think I owe him a nice home cooked meal after I get done using it for my food styling!

Sarah-Lambert Cook's Amazing Creative Vortex

The miniature watercolor with its impossibly rich detail and precision rendering are impressive, but what makes Sarah-Lambert Cook stand out is the quirky choice of subject matter. Monty Python, Jane Austen and Harper Lee references show up often, usually with an unusual personal twist. There are also finely drawn  animals, flowers, landscapes. Where, you might wonder, does she get all these ideas? Well, for starters, she has moved 5 times in the last year as a military spouse, so she's seen a lot of various landscapes, zoos, museums, nature preserves. But her best inspirational source is with her younger sisters. Their distinct and fearless personalities are captured below, along with Sarah-Lambert's notes. I think it shows how one creative person is often the voice for all that has touched us, especially the people who live in our hearts and minds.

This is my youngest sister who, at 16 years younger than myself, has a fantastic person style.  

She's really into red pandas right now and is wearing my Red Panda necklace (found here) while holding her own pet red panda, Charlie Brown.

Julianne is a pensive, beautiful girl who is just on the cusp of high school now. (Wearing the Le Magical Fireflies necklace) 

She spends a lot of time reading and even more time inventing stories of her own! (Wearing the Arrowhead necklace) 

Katy-Lynn is on the cusp of college and full of possibilities. Her observant nature helps in her writing which she is very good at! (Wearing the Llama locket)

Style

I invited a few local creative clayfolks over to my studio to show them  tricks that have made me successful on Etsy. These are people who already have a unique body of work. That’s the #1 thing. I believe that the second most important element for success is how you style your photos.

Above is a One Clay bead necklace from my My Tribe collection. I used natural sunlight, a vintage looking Boho shirt, and a model with no makeup and carefree hair. This one is all about natural beauty. It’s for a woman who wants that look, and meant to draw her in to look at the close up photos that are second in the listing.

Here are a few other successfully styled photos from the Artisans Gallery Team. Notice how each one is so much more than a catalog shot. The photos make a statement about the work, and tell us who the target audience is for that artisan. (Click on any photo to learn more).

From Birribe, the scarf pops against a subdued palette and the rustic bowl says ‘handmade, and ‘timelessly fashionable’.

 

From Starbags, a playful, fun and energetic styling photo says that this is for a woman who is light hearted and adventurous. She needs a bag that has personality but is made well enough to withstand her capricious and active lifestyle.

From Polestar, this conveys a message that the necklace will be front and center, a focal point for your outfit. Simple and powerful presentation.

From WolfArtGlass, the recycled shot glass is shown emerging from the bottles- a clever way to convey the process and its eco friendly nature. The target market- eco conscious buyers- are defined instantly.

From Ileaiye, the styling shows us a comfortable and flattering shawl in the easy going pose of the model. The white textured brick background also says urban. The styling successfully says that it is made for a woman who needs hip current styling but demands comfort.

From LeshasWorkshop, “turn your shoes into boot” is perfectly conveyed. The buyer is modern, youthful, sexy, and confident.

As Rod Stewart once sang “Every picture tells a story, don’t it?”  I enjoy styling my pottery. it’s another artform unto itself.

I’ve been eating my staging props

In order to show the size of my pottery, I've been using food as staging props. I scour the produce and bakery sections for food that looks good. I've gotten quite anal about it, actually.

I know I’m starting to sound eccentric in the grocery, but when I saw these great looking radishes, I picked through every bunch to get the perfect color. It sort of annoyed another woman, but hey! I need my radishes to be bright RED, ya know?!

I’m glad that Valentine’s Day has passed. Because my diet has gotten healthier. How would you like to have this on your counter staring at you after you’ve used it for staging?

ornaments

If you've followed my blog, you know how obsessed I am with getting the photography right in my Etsy store. Each season holds a new challenge, and now I'm facing how to do Chranukka (Christmas and Hanukkah) without losing my pagan buyers, and also eager to include any Muslims, Buddhists, Zoroastrians, or atheists. Because basically, we all want the same thing at our winter holiday, which is to charge less on our credit card than the amount that would cause us to go to jail!

So I pulled out these snowflake tealight holders as a backdrop for my ornaments, like the one above. My photo lab now consists of a Veritone taped to the outside of my back door, with me laying on the concrete patio to shoot. I did the snowflakes pretty well, and then started my Woodland Birds, with a paper and wire hanger. To cut to the chase, the paper caught on fire. I blew the candle out, which sprayed hot wax on my Veritone backdrop. I tried to scrape this off with a knife, cut my finger, and then bled on top of the wax. There was a bit of swearing involved at this point.

I can now give you a great tip. To remove wax and blood from a Veritone, use nail polish remover. That is my photo tip for today. So if you are in awe of my nifty candlelit shots, you now know exactly what kind of knowledgeable and capable photographer I am!

Staging my jewelry

These are some great shots I got of my daughter modeling 2 new necklaces. I shot them on a cloudy, windy day, so that the light is very diffuse and the wind was blowing through her hair. I intentionally left the colors soft, unsaturated. I chose a location that shows where I live and work, so that people from around the world on Etsy can see how the inspiration for my jewelry is the natural world around me. It also shows how well it looks with a simple summer dress, no make up, and wind blown hair. In others words, casual, natural, everyday female beauty.

I definitely think that staging my jewelry helps get it noticed, especially in a saturated market like jewelry on Etsy. The last one had to be reformatted, or Etsy's 'gallery' mode would chop off the pearl at the bottom, so it is not the lead photo. If you want to see them as they present on Etsy look here and here.

to celebrate Earth Day

There are Earth Day celebrations everywhere I go. I love living at a time when people are coming together to understand, celebrate, and protect the interconnectedness of each precious life on planet Earth. Here are some of the most wonderful photographers I've found recently. Each honors the life around them by their precise attention. And the last is an excerpt from the poetry diva Mary Oliver.

Enjoy!

by Milemarker

by Everyday Moments

by Gary Heller Photography

From Mary Oliver, the Summer Day:

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?

To Follow Your Life

I was struck by a comment left yesterday by Anne-Julie, regarding the meaning of her piece, Le Labyrinthe: "It represents a time of my life when I needed to look further, to escape from limbs and labyrinths, and other things that used to brake me. I needed to finally follow my life..."

...Which leads me to Gary Heller's Mystic Garden, pictured above. It is just summoning me to follow my life. What's really sort of making my head explode is that I could have also used this image from munieca in Argentina, or this one from InMost light in Tel Aviv, or even this print by Angelshair in Brooklyn, NY. They are all images of beckoning.

I'm not someone who likes to get all rational when I sense the mysterious, so I'll just end by saying that it's very intriguing that people from around the globe are making images in a common language, the one of our dreams, our inner listening, our heart's desire.

Maybe we are all sojourners on this planet; some spiritually, some emotionally, and some physically, so it is important to keep this in mind.