How to photograph your work using your phone & the Lightcase

Things have been busy here, my partner (tile designer extraordinaire Dominic Crinson) and I have been developing something for designer-makers that is going to make photographing small things super easy. It's called the Lightcase and we think it is brilliant! We've been working our precious prototype taking it to makers' studios and it's working a treat. It's basically a pop up photo studio, it's portable and low tech but creates a beautifully well lit space for photographing smaller things. It folds down into a nifty A4 folder and comes with three photographic backdrops - frosted, white and black...

The Lightcase basically came out of a need we both had to take great photos of the things we make for selling and marketing online. We do have a really good Digital SLR but for photographing the little things, getting all that equipment out and setting up a makeshift white backdrop and good lighting all just seemed overkill. We wanted to find a simpler way and so the Lightcase was born! It's made from Polypropylene and it works so well and it's so durable. I just love the way it pops up into a mini photo studio so you can take it to where ever you have the best light available and quickly document your product from a few different angles and upload to Etsy, Folksy, Made-it or whatever e-marketplace you might be using to sell or promote your work.

Here I'm photographing my products from the front with the white backdrop that comes with the Lightcase.

You can also photograph objects from above by placing your phone on top and aligning the lens with the hole in the top of the Lightcase. That way the Lightcase acts as a sort of tripod and you can get really sharp pics of smaller things from above. For taking pics from above you'd place the backdrop in flat as shown below...

What is great is that you don't even need a huge amount of light, the white material kind of captures the available light and traps it there and your phone camera does the rest! Smartphone cameras are pretty amazing these days and this suits me as I'd rather not get too technical, I just want to get good pics and get back to doing what I love best and that's making.

We really believe this is going to be a great tool for other crafters & designer-makers out there. We've even had a few other unexpected Lightcase enthusiasts like Warhammer miniature model makers and teachers who need to document student coursework. There are so many people who could use the Lightcase.

We're going to launch the concept on Kickstarter on the 1st April 2014 and if we can get it funded we can get the tooling done for the first production run of the Lightcase and get it out there for you all. It's going to be really affordable at about 22 pounds or around 35 US/AUS dollars... So stay tuned and if you like the idea go onto Lightcase on facebook and please do share it with anyone you know who could use one too. If you have any feedback at this stage, we'd love to hear your thoughts so leave a comment below.

Kickstarter Campaign Launch Monday 31st March 2014
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/640799395/660666627?token=35353fb9

Like the Lightcase on Facebook to keep up with the campaign

Also www.lightcase.co.uk

Christmas orders

Happy New Year! Just a little eye candy for my first post for 2014, here are some of the guys I made up for Christmas orders, hopefully they made their way into the stockings of a few good children...

Foxy Samples

Just a quick post...working on some new patterns, here is my new fox design. This guy stands proud and he's on the run just like the foxes I've always spotted.

These are the first versions. I'm quite happy with him and his foxiness. Hopefully I'll be able to get some of these guys on Etsy soon although my haul of gorgeous wool blanket scraps is coming to an end...

I've also been making samples for a beautiful organic baby shop that I met with last week. These are two first versions of the polar bear and elephant using their gorgeous organic cotton and cashmere/wool blend fabrics... Filled with wool and embroidered with silk thread that I have dyed with rusty iron...

Woven blankets and blanket stitches

A friend collects old woven woollen blankets and makes hot water bottle covers from them. I was lucky enough to receive a bag of the scraps. I'm often too precious with bigger pieces of textiles that I collect and find it difficult to settle on a worthy project for them. So I love finding little scraps because you can be sure whatever you do with them it's going to be more worthwhile than sending them to the tip!

The blanket scraps were just big enough to make into a skulk of foxes. There is something very foxy about plaid, maybe it's the story book illustrations of foxes dressed in tweed. Anyway I think these guys look pretty dashing...

The blanket stitched edging around these blankets is just too special to discard and thankfully my friend had not been able to bring herself to throw them away.  Rolling the edging into little scrolls makes gorgeous coloured rounds that I have been stitching together into interesting brooches. 

Christmas is just around the corner now and I have my work cut out if I'm to complete all the projects I've started in time. For a maker Christmas always brings with it a sense of urgency and pressure as if the world stops buying handmade for another year. But like this little scroll below the world still goes around and around, as does the desire to continue to make and mend.