Rockin' the product photos!

My good friend Ryan recently gave me some advice: "Drive to the store, buy a frame, and take pictures of your prints in the frame so people know what they will look like on the wall." She gives good advice (she does consultations--if you need help with your shop, look her up!), and my Etsy shop has been needing some tlc, so I decided to follow it. (Thank you Ryan!!!)

First, I bought an inexpensive little frame. Then, I decided where I wanted to shoot. I wanted an area that looked welcoming, but not too busy. A bit of color, but not enough to distract from the print. I finally decided on my dining room table. I put out a nice place setting, and a bowl of fruit, then put a small nail in the wall where I wanted my prints to hang. Finally, I set up a couple of clamp-lamps to get the area well-lit.

I have to be honest, there is a part of me that hates that Ryan gives such good advice, because to follow it means WORK. You should have seen me during the photo shoot. I had to turn up the music to get me motivated, and at least every other minute I had to give myself a little talk, "Lea, you are NOT going to stop now and finish tomorrow! Do you really think you're going to keep all of this set up until tomorrow? It will just be in the way! If you take it down you'll just procrastinate putting it all back together again." I give myself pretty good advice, too.

So I stuck to my guns. I pulled every print I have out of its plastic sleeve (I would recommend, if you carry prints, to keep a stock of them on file that are not in plastic sleeves, because it was really annoying to do this), and carefully took turns placing each in the frame, shooting, and replacing it with the next. I should mention that I took some time carefully placing my tripod at the beginning of the shoot so that I wouldn't have to re-position my camera every time.

Viola! It took a good bit of work, but it was worth it. Now all of my prints have a nice setting so that my customers have an idea of what they could look like on their wall. Plus, of course I kept the close-up scans in each listing so they can see the prints in detail.

Now to update all my listings!

I'm BaaaAck!

New York City. It was an experience, I'll tell you that! I am still sorting out some of my feelings from the whole thing, and getting over the mad flying back and forth in such a short time period, so I'm not going to say much.

I have to be honest, there were some serious flaws in the whole weekend that absolutely should not have happened. But I am a "make the best of it" kind of person, so I would rather talk about the good parts here and deal with the bad parts where they need to be dealt with.

Taking over the Etsy Labs and the Brooklyn Indie Market was really fun, and I met some really awesome people, etsy and non etsy alike :) I felt like I was 18 again sleeping in an air mattress on the half pipe that takes up one edge of the Labs, and I had the chance to get to know some of my pdx etsy teammates even better than before. I also got to have lunch with my cousin, which was short but very sweet.

Finally, I learned a LOT. Like, a show in New York is no different than a show at home--you never know how it will go so you just have to make the best of it. And that, no matter what is happening all around them, people will choose to experience the same exact situation in a wide variety of ways. I also learned that I have a super-power clown-car suitcase--in on little carry-on roller wheely suitcase, I packed enough stuff (four small paintings, 30 pendants, hand-painted cards, ACEO's, display items, business cards, tablecloth, and Steve's photographs!) to cover 4 feet of table space very attractively: :)

I am SO glad to be home, but I do not regret this experience in the least. Hopefully it will pave the way to more traveling and art selling in the future......