The downside to getting up at o-dark-thirty in the morning and driving down to spend all day in a brain-intensive class, followed by socializing with fellow knitters, combined with the fact that I always have a really hard time sleeping in unfamiliar places, is that today only happened through large amounts of caffeine and sheer will power.
Today’s class was only half the day, and was all about how to take better pictures (which I realize might not seem applicable to a fiber festival, but a lot of designers and yarn dyers and spinners have to do all their own photography, plus some of us just want our Ravelry pictures to maybe not suck quite so bad). The class was taught by the Shibaguyz, who were extremely energetic and witty for it being the morning of the last day of a four-day event (a fact that we all appreciated very, very much).
The awesome thing about this class is that it was specifically geared to everyone – from people with their fancy cameras with all those weird dials and gadgets, to people (like me) with their ‘point and shoot dummy’ cameras and mobile phones. It’s helpful that mobile phone cameras are way smarter we give them credit for, and have all kinds of useful settings that let people like me take better pictures than we have any right to, but now I know some extra tips that make me feel like I might actually have half a clue what I’m doing. Huzzah. Plus I came out of the class determined to build myself a light box (which means sorry cats, I may have to abscond with one of your boxes), and also make use of the Ott light that I keep forgetting I bought years ago specifically for lace knitting (the thinner the yarn, the higher the eyestrain).
Will my photography magically improve? Possibly not when it comes to the cats, but when it comes to things that don’t move on their own and can be posed and moved to get the right light, I’m feeling pretty confident.
*****
Speaking of better photography, you probably would expect today’s snowflake picture to be better, but here is where I confess that I did a bit of front-loading last week and finished out all the snowflakes for the rest of the month (because I knew I’d have very little time). So sorry – you’re stuck with crappy pictures for the next couple days.
And speaking of crappy pictures, here is what is quite likely the most boring snowflake in the book. Whee.
Making a snowflake a day for Thingadailies.