A few shots

The question is, how do you pose an afghan so that it looks its best in pictures?

I have been making lots of afghans lately, and I like sharing the way the final outcome turns out, usually at Flickr and Ravelry. I have taken some pictures of a couple of afghans hanging from a rope with clothespins, which is excellent for displaying quilts. For my ripple quilts, however, it has a tendency to make the ripples look mishapen. So, with my latest afghan, A River Runs Through previously Stormy Skies, I decided to try taking pictures in a variety of places to compare.

This is my more traditional way of displaying my afghans. My problem with this shot is if you don't get right in the middle of the blanket it looks mishapen. One end looks smaller than the other, which is simply a perspective issue, but not such a great way to display the blanket. Plus, depending on the size of the blanket it can be difficult to get the entire thing one shot.

This is an example I thought of trying, but I'm not so sure about how it turned out. I took out the perspective issue, but I still have a problem if the blanket is longer than the camera shot. I can only back off so long before I end up with a banner sized picture.


I have done this shot a variety of times. My extra room has splendid lighting, and it's my favorite place to take pictures when possible. There really isn't necessarily anything wrong with this shot and I think it shows the colors off splendidly. However, if the stripes were going the other direction, which normally they do, then the top stripes wouldn't be displayed.

A spare thought had me draping the quilt over a stool in the extra room, but I didn't like the way this one came out at all. Of course, I will have to keep the dog's out of the pictures, but Alex is visiting and wanted to make sure his mommy and daddy knew he was doing well.


This is similar to the clothes pin, but draped over the door it doesn't mishape the ripples. My problem with this shot is that if is it wider than the door it wont hang right. For narrow ones, as this one is, it would work.



Across the back of the couch is lovely, because it seems that's where you would find an afghan, but the light in this room doesn't seem to look as good. Everything is a little darker, which could easily be fixed with some altering of the shot, of course. The biggest problem with this shot is not being able to see the top few stripes due to them being flipped over the back of the couch.

These last two shots are the what-was-I-thinking-it's-getting-cold-out-here. Okay, it's not that cold outside in reality, but there will be days when there is snow on the ground or the sky isn't as blue, and then I can't know how those shots will come out. This one with me facing the sun left too many shadows on the blanket.


This one was better, though I had to make sure my shadow wasn't on the blanket or in the picture. What I liked about this shot is that you can see the texture a little more though it needs a little more work to see all the colors and stripes.


Obviously, these aren't the only shots that can work with an afghan, and they each have different pros and cons. It may simply be a matter of taking a variety of shots for each afghan I do in order to get the best shot for it on the day that I am taking its picture. But it was fun to look at these different ideas and to see what I came up with. The only idea I didn't try was with the afghan wrapped around someone, and neither of the boys were up for that. Maybe I can borrow inchworm sometime. A baby always makes a picture turn out better.