Quilt National Photography

Last week I went to the Dairy Barn to see the actual quilts that were selected for the 2013 show. Lucky me! All had arrived except for one. My graphic designer, Kim, was with me and our agenda was to select quilts for possible detail shots and for cover shots. We needed to tell the photographers which ones we liked and which area of the quilt needed a high resolution shot.

Unfortunately I can’t post any photos of this day! Not even snapshots of us in the room.  All the quilts were laid out on tables or hanging over tall racks. Of course we were surprised at how some quilts looked more amazing than their submitted image and some looked different. We couldn’t tell the size from the images we had so each quilt was surprising in some aspect.  But, one thing was clear…it will be a phenomenal show and I think everyone will love seeing this collection and come away with much inspiration and just amazement!

It was very difficult to select potential cover quilts. We first looked at all the past year’s books.  This year’s can’t look the same as previous ones. The last cover was predominantly turquoise so that color was banished. Also distinctive recent artists were avoided.  The questions became…what would appeal to the buyer? Should it be a ‘pretty’ cover or should it convey what Quilt National stands for…more avant garde?  We balanced that and selected about 7 possibilities.

While there, we also had to identify which quilts needed detail shots and what parts to shoot.  We had all the quilts printed on a contact sheet and circled the area for the photographers.  Normally, I am at all the photo shoots for my books but this time they could only do it while I had to be in Houston for Quilt Market so they worked with the guidance of Kathleen, director of Quilt National.  These photographers have experience with the show so I wasn’t worried.

But before they could shoot, Kim had to go back to her studio and work up some possible covers using the images of the quilts that we had to ‘test’ what would look good. She quickly mocked them up overnight and we could see which ones were strong and which were not so good.  Kathleen had these so she could direct the photographers to what we liked for the covers. This way some quilts were eliminated as covers before the photo shoot and others were added.

All I can say here is that Kim liked one quilt for the cover and I didn’t think it would be good because of the subject matter but she mocked up a cover anyway.  Well, it was a surprise to me but I loved it and it is both of our favorites so now we’ll see if Quilt National thinks it makes a good cover or not! You will know next Spring!

Next week is news on my trip to Quilt Market with LOTS of images!