Photographing handwoven textiles for art show applications

Hello, weaving friends. The loom has been getting a workout lately. I’m finishing up the last custom request for the holidays and then plan to get in a bit of weaving for my own Christmas gift-giving. Such fun!

I’ve been working on putting together photos for 2022 art fair applications. Taking photos of table runners and placemats, which are flat, is a bit of a challenge. In fact, when I approached a professional photographer who takes product photos for fellow artisans in the region, he flat out refused, saying that it took too much time to get a good photo of a table runner. I couldn’t disagree with the fellow; it is a bit of a headache to photograph textiles. I spend a lot of time taking photos and editing them (and a lot of time trying to rustle up fruit or evergreens or antique tea cups to round out the photographs). Below are some photographs that I worked on this week:

I’m hoping that this photo, along with a few others that I’ve been working on, will suffice for application purposes. I’ve got a bit of hemming to do on some blue overshot runners; perhaps I will photograph these, too.

Here is a kitchen towel photograph that garnered a number of positive comments and “likes” on my Instagram feed recently:

Art fair organizers often have specific size and resolution requirements for photographs, so it is helpful to have access to some photo editing software. I use a shareware editor called “XnViewMP” and it works very well. I adjust the resolution of my photos to 300 dpi prior to submission; it just makes the images a bit sharper.

Here is a non-fruity photograph:

I do not have a fancy camera (well, at one point I was regularly using my husband’s very nice digital Canon camera, but I tripped and fell while carrying it and it has been wonky ever since – SAD!) so I snap photos and videos with my iPhone 7S. (Yes, I know that there is now an iPhone 13 or 26 or 8765 available now; it just isn’t the right time for an upgrade and truthfully, it doesn’t matter to me that much).

If you have any tips for photographing handwovens that you’d like to share with other readers, please feel free to add your suggestions in the “Comments” section. We can all learn from each other!

Be well,

Kate K.