Friday 25 June 2010

Photographing Needlework

Although it is my husband, John, who is the photographer in the family, I thought I'd have a go at photographing some of my needlework pictures yesterday.

In particular, I tried to photograph the picture I am most proud of. This is a very large gobelin stitch needlepoint picture which I think was called 'Midnight in Winter'. It is a kit I got from the Gobelin Company based in Germany. They don't supply this particular picture any more so unfortunately I can't check the name and I didn't keep the counted chart pattern ...... well, I'm not going to do it again, that's for sure!

I fell in love with the picture the minute I saw it in the catalogue but it is a biggie! It's 72 cm deep and 43cm wide and on quite fine count fabric, requiring 9 stitches per cm. Mind you, with these particular kits, one gobelin stitch is actually two physical stitches, so really it's 18 stitches to the cm. It is completely done in different shades of blue from the very darkest blue-black to off-white and white itself, and it shows some sheep in a field, with the silhouette of a tree to one side, all illuminated by a full moon.

However, photographing it proved to be difficult! Although it is framed behind non-reflective glass, I could still see reflections of the windows behind me. I tried everything! Standing to one side improves things but it is more difficult than I thought!

I'd also like to try to photograph stitches up close ........ but I can see this will also be a challenge!

I will have to search on the Internet for advice!

2 comments:

Rachael said...

Oh, I though I was about to see a photo of your stitching then?
If you are having trouble with reflections...lay the picture on the floor and then take a picture, it may help.

Elaine said...

Sorry! That was a bit of a tease, wasn't it?

However, I have followed your brilliantly simple suggestion for photographing the picture and put it on a post today.

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