Photos, lots of them

I have been taking a lot of photos lately. I'm very inspired by this team of amazing glass artists that I am part of, the EGA (Etsy Glass Artists). They all sell on Etsy and some of them have been experimenting with techniques to increase sales - and they have been finding great success! The experiments focus mainly on listing very often (some of which is "renewing" but a good deal involves a lot of new product which to me screams a LOT of new photography and digital editing) and then taking really great pictures.

Ah photography... if anyone has ever checked out my flickr site you can tell I play around a lot with my amateur photos trying to capture what my glass creations look like. Its fun. The more I take, the better they get.

I recently took new shots of a favorite piece of mine that is for sale on Etsy - and I thought about some advice I read on the EGA forum for choosing the 5 pictures to use. The indecision kills me, I take sooo many shots to get a few that I like.

Susan Sheehan (susansheehan.etsy.com) had this great advice - any Etsy sellers out there check this out: think about your 5 pictures in each listing the following way

"Grab their attention with an artsy shot.

Offer it as if they saw it for the first time in a show display.

Pretend they have picked it up, and turned it over. (c'mon we all do it)

Offer a close up.

Offer any other view you can think of."

I love this advice! I totally touch things in the retail environment, and its a fun challenge to use my photography to offer a digital tactile experience :)