Talk about steep learning curves!

Anything I scanned from my newish printer/scanner had a pale duck egg blue cast to it. Not entirely unattractive as a background at times, but it did distort the colour somewhat! This was amazingly easily solved (fingers crossed!) by installing some software that came with the printer – I have no idea what it was all about as I confess that I left this to my resident tecchie  on the ‘I know a man who can’ principle!

Spurred on by this, I decided it was time to see if I could produce better photographs of my work to put on the website.  So I went along to a one day workshop on the subject. It was a beautiful day, a beautiful North Yorkshire village, a lovely house, and 3 other women, all excellent company. And the photographer was a delightful guy who didn’t blink an eyelid when I sheepishly asked him if he could tell me how to switch on my digital SLR!

I normally use a little point and press camera but I was given a very nice digital SLR for Christmas – I am ashamed to say, 2 years ago! I am firmly of the opinion that anything ‘tecchie’ – I use the term to include computers and their associated bits, phones, cameras, flash tv systems ... you get my drift, I’m sure .. well, I am certain that they are like children and horses - if they know you are afraid of them, you have lost it before you begin! After 15 minutes reading the camera instruction booklet, I knew it was a lost cause!  So this lovely piece of kit has sat in its very impressive bag for 2 years, doing nothing! But no longer!

I came away from my day with basically 3 approaches to improving the quality of the photography of my work.

1.       Become a photographer – do a 3 year degree, requisition a room at home which I paint grey and install very serious black out curtains. Buy lots of kit. Get serious. And keep notes of camera settings etc. ( I am appalling at keeping technical notes of any kind – another reason why I will never be a proper dyer!)

2.       Compromise – read the instruction book, buy lots of tin foil, a couple of adjustable lamps and acquire at least 2 more hands, preferably 4 more, to hold everything in place ...

3.       Pay a photographer to do it properly!

1 is certainly not going to happen. I appreciate wonderful photography  but there is no way that it ever would become my art form.

2 probably won’t happen much because it might start creeping towards the buying more kit aspect of 1 and for me, that way madness, and possibly insolvency, lie! But I can at least understand the manual a bit better now so I might start reading it when there’s nothing on tv to distract me from working!

3 is great! There is a small problem with it – yes, I can see you’ve worked that out too! This has to be reserved for really special situations because of the cost.

But I have learned that I can improve things considerably by one or two simple steps. I tend to photograph something just as it is and rely on Photoshop or CorelPaint to sort it out. I am always amazed at how much I can improve things with these programs - even with an ‘all in one’ editing button on something like Picassa. But there are obviously limits. So now I can put my digital SLR on M – I think that means manual, not preset, and fiddle with ISO settings and one or two – certainly no more – things (can’t remember what they are but I did make copious notes!) and hopefully get better photos to entrust to the wonders of an editing program. Now all I have to do is practice saying things such as, ‘Perhaps if you tried  an ISO setting of 400  it would help’ with an air of quiet authority, with my impressive camera bag at my side (sadly, cannot afford the paparazzi lens to look really impressive!) and everyone will think I am a photographer! Or maybe not!

The other thing I have to do, of course, is start taking more photos with my newly acquired – if somewhat minimal – knowledge. But that requires a cup of strong coffee first!

So watch this space! I really do intend to get the camera out this morning, start bonding with it,  and make a start! And remember, all you proper photographers out there, it is not kind to mock the photographically afflicted!!