Portland: Polka Dots, Nudity, and Roses

I went to Portland. Not last weekend but the weekend before. It was sweet.
Before I went I painted my nails lavender with dark purple polka dots using my birthday present Sephora dotting tool.

The lavender is OPI's "Do You Lilac It?" and the dots are Nicole by OPI's "The Grape Debate."
The whole thing chipped like hell in about five minutes. I don't know if it's because I was flying and running around Portland with my family, or if it's just chippy nail polish, but I used OPI base and top coats, so it shouldn't have chipped so badly.

Portland! Land of the hipster and vintageness and six kinds of organic and really good food and coffee and cute shops and craftiness. If Etsy wasn't headquartered in Brooklyn, it would be in Portland.
My entire immediate family (parents, sister, brother, and I) met up for my sister's graduation from grad school. She is now a Master. Congratulations, sister! Her apartment is amazing. It's a converted vintage office building with amazing old hardware and sconces and things. I'd have taken photos for blog inclusion but she would have killed me, so use your imagination.

We took a side trip to the ocean at Cannon Beach and the Haystack Rocks where we watched a man get down on one knee and propose to a woman who clearly said yes as she cried and they embraced.

We went to the Saturday Market. There was a lot of food.

We ate a very small percentage of it and still ended up stuffed.

Saturday night I witnessed the Portland World Naked Bike Ride. People dressed in costumes and painted their bodies. One woman painted a bike on her chest with each of her breasts as a wheel. I did not get any photos of the Portland World Naked Bike Ride. Just imagine thousands of penises and multi-colored breasts flying past, all attached to happy people trying to hi-five the bystanders while a semi-impromptu band played along the side. Or, check out some of the great photos other people got here: http://bikeportland.org/2012/06/17/lots-of-smiles-and-flesh-for-miles-the-2012-world-naked-bike-ride-photos-73404

Monday, before going to the airport, my parents and I went to the rose gardens in Washington Park. I'm a big fan of roses.

We'd had beautiful weather the entire trip, but that day it was overcast and raining on and off, which wasn't great for existing but was great for taking pictures. 

Perfect droplety roses everywhere and lush green and the Portland skyline in the background. Not bad.

After the gardens we had just enough time to run through Powell's Bookstore. I bought something but I can't say what because it is a gift for someone that I haven't given yet.

The end.

Camera Obscur(edbyapersonstealingit)a

Someone stole my camera. And my GPS.
My camera fell out of my bag in my car. When I went back to get it, I discovered my car was unlocked. Passenger door ajar, trunk open, everything rummaged through. I'm pretty sure the only things taken were the camera and the GPS. Thank goodness I stopped using my car as a storage facility a few months back. There's still some crap in there, light a big bag of green glasses for my friend's wedding, a 1940s encyclopedia, a crystal lamp buried in the trunk, random bits and pieces no one really wants.
The GPS sucks a lot since it was a birthday gift from two of my close friends. I've gotten used to it, but I can deal without it.
The camera sucks more. I have to replace it immediately so I can get my product photos up and keep listing and, well, do my job. I've been wanting a better camera, but I'm not in a financial position right now to buy any camera. So do I get a cheap one to hold me over? Or do I go into debt and get the long-term camera now? And where do I get one anyway? I wasn't ready for this. Bad bad bad.

Globalized Business, Globalized Photo Props

Poking around on the Etsy forums again, I saw a thread from an Australian Etsian asking "How big is a dime?" (Spin-off thread on using props to show size can be found here.)

While the paint dries on our latest creations, we can sit at our computers and chat with people from every other continent on the planet. We simultaneously watch the sun rise and set during virtual lab critiques, turn to friends in another hemisphere when we need encouragement through our own difficult seasons, and find so much connection and familiarity in this enormous web of community and creation.

It's easy to forget that not everyone sees squirrels out their windows.
Uses a knife, fork, and spoon.

Buys ground beef and chicken by the pound and the rest of their meat in Spanglish.
Can prepare and eat an artichoke.

Thinks mailboxes are blue.

and money is green.

and a quarter is a coin.

and a dime is small.

I've been trying to photograph my Etsy items with related, universal-as-possible objects. I went on a salt and pepper rampage a few days ago. I'm not sure how helpful the salt and pepper piles are in terms of size, but it's a reference and it's better than US currency or (in my opinion) the ugly ruler photo many people take. I also used the salt and pepper containers from the store. How many countries get Morton Salt in a cylinder with a spout? I have no idea.
My rolling pins all got photographed with eggs in a bowl since that was the best I could come up with at the time.

Creativity and problem solving is a lot of what I like about the whole Etsy business thing, especially with the vintage shop.

What items are you trying to photograph in a way that demonstrates their sizes? What have you come up with in the past? Have any suggestions for anything in my shop? What is or isn't universal that surprises you in some way?

ART CREDITS: Mixing by nARTa available at narta.etsy.com
Irice Salt and pepper Shakers photographed by me and available at JillHannah.etsy.com

My Camera's Got the Blues

I'm already a Photoshop addict; mindless snapshots of my friends at the Chinese New Year's parade are subjected to at least cropping and curves before I'll post them on Facebook. But today's batch of pictures were like a germaphobe finding a booger on his coffee cup.
I know my camera has trouble with purple. It thinks purple is blue. I heard a rumor that Canons in general don't like purple, so maybe Grimace screwed them on a modeling contract and this is their revenge.

Today I was not photographing purple, I was photographing the hats I got at the auction last week until my camera battery died. One of the hats is green, and while it came out green, the hat on the screen was significantly bluer than the hat in reality. I ended up color correcting every single shot. I always feel weird when I have to doctor photographs to make them look more like the real thing.
So purple is blue, green is blue. Camera, do you have the blues? Because these color identity crises are wearing thin, and for as much as I love Photoshop, all that extra work kind of...blew.

Doggy Style

I guess I don't have to retake the photos of the thank you cards from the last post since they sold tonight. Woot. I should be taking pictures of all the other envelopes I have floating around here instead. Shelley (my friend's dog who has been staying with my while my friend is in South America) did not like my last photo shoot because I wasn't paying attention to her. She plopped down her toy and camped out on the lightbox light extension cords and looked sad. Obviously, I had to take her picture:

While I'm now at the point where I can't list any more card sets until I photo more card sets, it's not like I haven't been productive. I'm working on a dog sweater a friend of mine bought for her boyfriend's birthday that she wants shipped off to him by next week, so I've been knitting my brains out. The pattern is supposed to be a hybrid of the Israeli and Japanese flags, except with the Israeli flag's colors reversed so it's not mostly white. Quick terrible photo of my progress taken right now in my lap at my computer:

Shouldn't be much longer now. I got a lot done on the bus ride downtown today, more done while I waited at the DMV, and the rest has been during instant Netflix TV episodes of Weeds, 30 Rock, and Miami Vice. Think any of that gets infused into the knit?