Ain't nobody got time to wrestle a mannequin!

One of the biggest draws in my shop are my vintage dresses. I made the leap into selling vintage dresses back in 2008 when my Etsy shop was still fairly new and I was new to product photography and all the rest. This week, though I've been putting it off for quite some time, I decided to re-shoot all the dresses I've had for sale in my shop now for more than five years. I mean, in 2010 I finally bit the bullet and bought a mannequin--I'd been using a plus-sized dress form that my mom scored from a yardsale and half the time I was photographing dresses completely unzipped down the back because they just didn't fit the form.

Despite having bought the mannequin in 2010, I only re-shot the dresses I already had for sale in 2012...

I've been putting it off. I remembered the 2012 shoot taking FOREVER because dressing and undressing the mannequin is a bear. The 2012 shoot had my studio lights, which aren't that bright, shot at nighttime in a dark basement.

Not to mention the fact that my black backdrop was in the wrong place for the angles that I needed, so my photos from that night were terrible with half a backdrop or some awful such thing.

Now? I'm 34 weeks pregnant. Ain't nobody got time (or energy) to wrestle a mannequin!

However, if I want to get these dresses sold, the terrible pictures from 2008-9...2012... have to go. I know I don't have a good photo setup for the mannequin and clothing despite being a professional photographer. I've got pro equipment but I'm not a portrait photographer by any means, so I don't have a studio setup with legit backdrops. I'm a photojournalist with a white tablecloth and I sold my mediocre light setup to my brother in law because it suits his videography needs far better than it ever suited my still needs. As a result, my lighting for clothing photogaphy consists of a 40 year old overhead fluorescent light and a big ol' window.

Yikes.

So I shot 8 dresses for my Etsy shop before my body and baby were like, "LOL UR DONE IT'S NAPTIME" and I brought my tiny photoshoot home to be edited. Then I noticed this photo.

What the hell happened to her wig? Where's her bottle of Jack?

And since I can't drink my sorrows away at the moment, I went straight to the Etsy forums to mention how I thought my mannequin looked like she rolled out of bed. Because quite clearly, she did. And my long white tablecloth idea is just not working either, I can see that.

So I'm replacing crappy five year old product photos with mediocre product photos. OK. On the Etsy forums, someone mentioned how if I photographed her with a bottle of Jack in her hand, she would show it to all her friends, which reminded me of my past clothing photography endeavors.

Like...before I had the plus size dress form, I had a five foot plastic skeleton with a stuffed bra as such a gimmick. I remembered selling at least one dress like that, but there were actually two sold, and so I went off in search of my bad clothing photos from way back.

And that is what this post is about-- the TERRIBLE clothing photos I started out with, and where I am still struggling today. At least the latest round isn't nearly as cringe-worthy as some of these!

2008:

Oh look, here's a dress hanging off my mother's porch! Look at her shed in the background!

OMG so like that angle wasn't good enough, here's the VFW next door and OMG LOOK AT MY SAAB!!!!

Well none of those shots worked. Here's the money shot. THIS DRESS SOLD WITH THIS PHOTO.

Here's another look at the dress that's been in my shop the absolute longest. It's hard to photograph because of that pattern, which almost never looked as good as it does in person until the 2012 shoot.

2008: Shot on a hanger tacked to the living room wall in almost direct sunlight with a Kodak DX7590, and below, shot in a basement with the same Kodak and the flash! For the love of all that is holy...

2009: Dress on the plus-size dress form, completely unzipped down the back since it's a US size 4. At least this was better than say...hanging off my mom's porch. Shot with a Canon Rebel XS in my mother's living room. There are still quite a few of the April 2009 photo shoot images still floating around my Etsy shop, but not as the main photo. There were some others shot in the basement in October 2009 that are also still in existence. Honestly, I think the April 2009 was the most successful but not the best they could have been due to lighting/equipment/etc. There were a lot of motion blur photos or just out of focus, etc, and they all got listed that way...

I had high hopes for the 2012 shoot, which went so horribly I didn't want to even tackle it again for another two years. I couldn't even find the photos, which apparently never made it to my archive from my laptop.