Taking photos of quilts and other textiles can be difficult, and preparing and uploading the image to the Island Quilts entry form provides an extra challenge for some of our members. This page offers some guidelines and advice to help you.
Please note that quilts DO NOT have to be completely finished to take the photograph for your entry. There are 3 months between the beginning of entries opening and when quilts need to be taken to the depots, so we know that not everyone will have perfected their quilts. The purpose of submitting a photograph with your entry is to help the Exhibition Designer design the exhibition.
How many photos to take
To enter the competition you must upload ONE photograph of the whole quilt via the online entry form. Once your quilt is entered into the exhibition, it will be photographed professionally by our photographer, so don’t worry about it being a perfect image! We require a photograph of the quilt though to help our Exhibition Designer design the actual exhibition. We need a plan before hanging day!
Image size
For your Island Quilts online entry, we want a clear photo that shows your entire quilt. It need not be as high quality as you might want if you are taking a photo to print or for your personal archives. The maximum file size our image uploader will accept is 2 mg. Images of 300 dpi would usually be a file size of around 1-2 mb.
File Type
Our uploader will only accept the JPEG or JPG format. You could save your images as Tiff files but these tend to be far larger and may be slower to upload, so we recommend you save them as Jpegs.
Which camera/device to use
Although we want a clear photo of your quilt so that our Exhibition Designer can make our exhibition vibrant and interesting, the photo you include with your entry does not need to be of very high quality. In fact, if you use a digital camera and take a really high quality photo, you’ll probably have to resize the image as it will be too large to upload. Remember the maximum file size you want is 2 mb.
Lighting
Good lighting is important when photographing textiles and we advise taking photographs during the day to use natural light where possible.
The best place to photograph your work is outside – on a bright hazy or cloudy day for natural light. Direct sunlight can wash out colour and detail so on a sunny day, it’s best to use an area / wall in light shade.
Also consider the direction of the lighting. For some quilts it might be best to take the photo with the light directly shining towards the quilt, whereas for others – especially those where you would like to highlight the quilting – may benefit from the light coming from the side.
Taking photos
- Have someone hold your quilt for you. If it’s a large quilt, you may need two tall people. Hopefully you had the foresight to marry someone tall and to have at least one tall child!
- If you already have a hanging sleeve on your quilt and have a pole long enough to put through it, it can be useful to use this when photographing your quilt.
- It is important to be steady and balanced when taking your shots to avoid blurring.
- Be sure to focus on the QUILT and not on the background. On many phone cameras, you can ensure you are focusing on the correct area by selecting the object you wish to focus on in the preview.
- Take a number of different images to ensure you get a best shot. Once you review them you may find some images slightly out of focus so more to choose from is best.
- Try taking some with flash to compare the effect.
- Beware of windy days flapping the quilt!
Transferring an Image from Your Phone to Your Computer
Lynne Hargreaves has been kind enough to show the process she uses to take a photo with her phone then email it to herself so she can access it on her computer. Every phone is different so the steps might look different on yours, but this is useful if you’ve not done this before. Put your cursor over an image to see the caption. You can also click on any image and bring up a slideshow.
