Photography, the bane of my Etsy existence. . .

The title is a joke, sort of  😏  although not really.  I have always liked the idea of photography and I've taken a lot of photos in my lifetime.  However, I've never been that good at photography, in spite of having taken a class in high school and continuing to take photos for a bloody lifetime, I still stink at it.  😩

Many years ago before digital, I used to use a real camera which was all kinds of adjustable and real film which back in the high school days I developed myself.  I understand the basics of camera settings but I was never a pro and now with digital cameras and auto-adjust everything the damn camera never adjusts the way I want.  😕  Reading the manual and trying to dig into the settings and adjust the way I want is proving to be a pain in the A$$ and not that effective.

I have been battling my lousy photography skills for many years now.  My old business had different products and they were not as hard to photograph as the chainmaille or heavens help me art.  The jewelry has always been tricky, tiny details, every thing is shiny and reflective by nature.  My solution has been to just take tons of photos with variance in lighting and settings and then pick the ones that turn out best, it's time consuming to shoot 30-50 photos to get a handful to use in a listings. 

But I do get lucky and manage to get a few really good ones every now and then.  I generally don't do a lot of adjusting or editing of the photos I use except cropping, straightening, maybe a little light adjusting but I really do try to not "over-edit" my photos.  I want the colors to be accurate, I want the items to match the photos, I don't mind the items looking better than the photos.  Honestly, I'm a crafter, an artisan not a photographer, this is a difficult admission to put out into the world but there it is.  

One cannot be all things.  I have many talents and skills but sadly photography is not among them.  😢  I fear this will always be detrimental to my business, so much of online sales is the visual and I just can't seem to get that part.  I am not giving up just accepting I am at a disadvantage.  I will continue to try my best to get decent images of all the things I create but I fear I will never be up to par.