I went over today to visit a friend, Joe Decker, who is a professional photographer. (Check out his work, it’s gorgeous!) He mostly does landscapes, but he occasionally photographs objets d’art in his studio. I had asked him if he could show me how to photograph textiles, and he graciously agreed. (Okay, so I greased the skids a little with a promised batch of jasmine-vanilla-orange blossom honey caramels. What’s a little bribery between friends? 🙂 )
Anyway, I went down to his place in south San Jose, and we took some photos of the more photographically interesting pieces. The results were stunning, especially compared with my feeble attempts with a digital camera. I present to you the pilot episode of “Extreme Photographic Makeover”:
My photo of “Liquid Fire”:

The “Extreme Makeover” version:

Before:
After:

thank you for sharing this. Not only does he know how to photograph them, he has great skills in “rumpling” them as well. It seems to me this is one of three important skills he has. The other two are the black velvet and his ability to light the textiles. Dave of The Weaving Studio (who, if he is not a professional photographer is darn close) also knows how to “rumple” textiles. He takes excellent photos which I very much admire.
Beautiful, just beautiful. Who would have thought that rumpling could be so difficult? Hi would be well rewarded with the Jasmine Caramels… I forgot to say “thank you” earlier for my box of chocolates (I didn’t know I was getting one!) but that was my absolute favorite.