what a difference a year makes

I've been getting my etsy shop ready for the holiday season and decided to renew this cardinal coin purse that I'd allowed to expire after last Christmas. I remember thinking at the time that the picture was really awesome and that it was a good seller (I sold 5).

2010        vs.       2011

I've done a lot of product photography and editing in Photoshop since then, so I was alarmed when I renewed it and saw it next to the newer items in my shop. EGADS! What a dark, sad photo, standing out like a big ol' bruise! This is a typical newbie Etsy seller mistake and a rampant one on Ebay as well. Pictures just look more appealing brightened almost to the point of overexposure.

A little bokeh goes a long way too. That's the blurriness in the background that you can get if you open your aperture up a lot. I'm lucky enough to own a lens for my DSLR camera that has a 1.8 aperture (smaller numbers mean bigger when it comes to apertures), so I set my camera on aperture priority at 2- 2.5 and shoot away. If you have a point & shoot, there is usually a macro setting that you can use for coseups of your item that can help achieve a little bokeh also. If the background is too in focus, you can work around it by moving your item farther away from whatever background you are shooting against.

Hopefully this year since I've retaken the photo, my little cardinal purse will be even more popular...