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. 

Slow . . .sad and low

I have no idea what the ____ is up with Etsy the last few days. 😖 

I have read about google changes, and etsy search changes, how google was downing etsy with the latest algorithm but I didn't really understand it. I had noticed a slight dip in traffic but at that point I still had traffic at least. 😐 

Now I have not had a single view from "external search" ie google in a flipping week, literally my stats for the last 7 days show a 0. 😒  I have no idea how to counter this, my overall traffic is down 65% from last year in spite of my having a record high number of listings and a wide variety. 

Hell I started listing original paintings and added a whole new category and set of keywords which should have increased traffic not killed it.  😟  

I should be happy my social media traffic has increased but it seems to be the only traffic I have at the moment, exchanging a dozen google shopping views for a handful of facebook views does not seem like a good exchange to me.  😢

Well thanks anyway. . .

Ok, since the whole selling "art" is new to me I decided to ask for a bit of help with my new listings.  

Now I was actually hoping some artist-y types would comment on the content of the descriptions, the keywords that work, just make sure I'm not leaving out any obvious or important details that people may want. 

I specifically asked "Help, advice, critique if you must but please be nice" now in my head this was a sing-song-y rhyme-y bit of a joke, but it lead to the first comment being a bit snarky. 😒   So I clarified "I simply meant advise on the actual listings, info, format, pricing not "hey that's amateurish and no one will pay for it" type stuff." 

Although, I find it a bit ridiculous that I had to clarify this because people use the forums all the time asking for help, and critiques and I have seen many of these people give others really good suggestions, so imagine my disappointment when it didn't work that way with my post.

Now I am aware my photos are not the greatest, I generally speaking suck at photography, but I thought I had gotten some decent photos the other day the colors were accurate, they looked good to me.  

So I was a bit sad when nearly every comment was about how bad my photos suck. 😩😖  Annoyingly the majority of the advice to use better lighting, get some white boards, etc., etc., Well I have news for you those very photos they were all putting down were in fact shot in EXACTLY the manner they were suggesting. 😕                                  

Literally, giant white board on the bench top, giant tri-folding stand up, whole bank of lights, including the fancy professional lights that came with the light box the husband got me, in front a window. Exactly what they were all trying to suggest, as if I'm a total moron and had not done all the obvious standard stuff. 😏

One person suggested a helpful keyword I had not thought of which was great. 👍  A bunch of people are trying to suggest "Staged" photos of it on a wall over a sofa or with a nice table with a vase of flowers, or those awful digital backdrops.  Now I'm all for photos of it hanging on a wall if only I had a decent wall in this house, my living room is 3 walls of windows and a built-in bookcase, my sofa is floating in the middle of the room, my fireplace has incredibly ugly brick wall and it's in a room with zero windows so worst lighting ever, the master bedroom has fugly foil infused busy ass wallpaper.  😡  I really want to take some of these suggestions but they just aren't really an option for me, this a rental house so I don't want to put more holes in the walls, there are only so many rooms and most of them have crap lighting and I can't move my whole bank of lights. ~sigh~  I did some test shots in the guest room but then they complained it was too much space and it made the artwork look small. ~eye roll~  It is small it's only an 8" inch by 10" inch canvas. 

I hate the very idea of digital backdrops they make it too easy confuse and mislead people, it screws up the scale when a small 10"x10" picture looks like it's "sofa" sized, and those fake frames don't get me started, I don't want anyone ever thinking that the painting is already framed.  I've seen so many people in the forums all confused or angry, sellers complaining that buyers don't read descriptions, buyers complaining the photos showed one thing but they got another. Yes they make nice professional looking photos, but here's the thing I'm not a "photographer"and never claimed to be.  😇

One asshat just couldn't resist "I take it you love your cat - but at a glance the image in your avatar is just a black blob."  Because why stick to the topic or be helpful when you can be a dick to a stranger on the internet?  😑  

One guy actually right clicked and stole one of my listing photos, "improved" it in whatever software he uses and convo'd it back to me like he was doing me a favor showing me how "good" they could be if I edited them properly. 😬  Unfortunately, it looked like sh*t, he just jaked up the contrast and over exposed it and made the colors completely wrong. 😐  You know the very reason I do not do such over editing because it changes the colors and makes things look wrong, which leads to unhappy buyers when they open the box and it's a different color than the photo they ordered from, also known as the thing they all bitch about that has NEVER happened to me because I don't fudge my photos, they are what they are.  😎

I may not be setting sales records but I have never once had someone complain that the item they received didn't look like they thought it would, most of the time the response is "the photos don't do it justice" "it's even more gorgeous in person". It's the under-promise/over-deliver concept, that makes for happy people when they open my packages. There is a reason my other business never had a single return in 8 years, and this one has nothing but 5 star reviews.  

So I think I'm just going to keep on doing things my own way.  I will try to get better photos.  I will try to get a few of them hanging somewhere with some stuff for scale and perspective but, I will not use digital backdrops or frames, I will not over edit them to look better than they are.  I'm not photo-shop'ing photos of my paintings to look better than the paintings, there are no super crisp details it is swirly watercolors for f*ck's sake. 😛

Jumping off a cliff. . .

Ok, so it just sort of feels like jumping off a cliff to me.  😯

I decided to go ahead and start listing some of my paintings in the Etsy shop.  I have given it quite a bit of thought and have changed my mind about a hundred times mostly out of fear, fear that no one will like them or buy them, fear that the photos aren't good enough, fear that someone will buy one and then not like it when they get it.  You know random fear and insecurity.  😓

When I post them on instagram they get likes and sometimes even comments. I mailed one to a friend and she loves it, but we all know friends and family are totally bias. 😄

I have started with 4 of the spacescape that I think are the best and I plan to start adding the abstract rainbows next week.  Now I just hope this isn't a total waste of time.  😇

Learning to paint. . .

I have always been a hands-on learner. 😄  So when I decided I wanted to learn to paint I did not do a bunch of research or watch a bunch of instructional videos. I mean I watched Bob Ross as kid but who didn't?  😉  I always liked the idea of "happy little trees". 

But me being oh so Me just had to do things my own way.  I saw a clearance going out of business sale sign on an art store last year and I decided I wanted to check it out. I had driven by the store pretty regular it's in a plaza with other shops I use often, I had previously thought "hey I should check that out someday".  So the day I saw the closing sign I was a bit sad but thought "hey last chance".  I went in and wandered around a bit, having no idea what I was really looking at or looking for just wandering wide eyed admiring all the things I didn't have a clue how to use.  😊  

I spotted this really cool portable easel case thing and it was soooo discounted that not buying seemed like a waste.  So I bought it, then realized I had no idea how to even unfold it let alone use it, and that I didn't have any supplies or even a clue about painting.  I spent weeks staring at the box wondering if I was completely crazy, if I really wanted to start down this road. In the same weeks I also went shopping with 55% off coupons at A.C.Moore and JoAnns and picked up some watercolor paints, a pack of assorted shaped/sized brushes, some canvases, you know the things I thought one would use in painting. 

After I compiled the assorted supplies I then went back to the mental debate of what was I thinking, I'm no "artist".  I decided I'd just try and see how it turned out, I have no training or technique or general clue even really but I decided I was just going to have fun.  

 So I set up the easel, loaded it with my supplies, opened the paints and went to town in my living room.  No fancy studio, no fancy lights (at the time) just playing with my paints while watching TV.

But honestly I love the way it turned out.  I am not an artist I still do not claim to be an artist but I have now made some real art, even if it was purely by accident.  😛  Oh and it was purely by accident, in school I was never good with portrait stuff, faces and features I just sucked.  However, in my randomly swirling paint to make space-scapes I somehow ended up with this awesome pair of lips whisper from the depths of this black-hole.  I fell in love with the completed piece and it's mine, it's hanging in my upstairs hallway.

I let that fester, I went back to jewelry and wire trees and living my life, but every night on the way to bed I walk past this painting and it makes me think and it makes me smile and it makes me want to paint more.  

And I have been off and on, in between other things.  I sent one to a good friend because she was very complimentary on my facebook pics and really seemed to like them. 😇  She took a photo of it hanging on her wall and shared it on facebook, said she loved it. 

I have since done some research because I was considering selling them, so I wanted to get a price range and see how the artist-y types write the descriptions and stuff.  What I learned is the price range I had in mind is really low compared to most others.  Also reading their descriptions about priming and treating canvases and such made me realize I don't do any of that, I have no idea what they are even talking about. "Holy crap I'm doing it all wrong"  😞😟😕

So I did some more research and reading and then investigated my supplies.  Whew I'm ok, somehow I lucked into pre-primed, pre-treated, pre-stretched, kiln dried canvases.  So all those confuse-y step they were talking about I don't have to do it's all done for me.  Thank heavens, I felt like a total choad for a while there.  Now I've determined I'm just going to keep doing me my way right or wrong, for better or for worse.  😉