I'm Not Quitting the Soap Business & New Soaps.

The more I think about pursuing product photography, the more sense it makes.  Originally, the thought of making photography in any form the realistic money earning route seemed ridiculous.  The more I consider it, the more people I talk to who work as photographers for a living and as I begin to learn some photoshop skills, the idea seems much more viable.  The digital age has really made it possible for such things.  For those of you that sell on Etsy, could you imagine taking 35 mm pictures of your items, sending them to be developed, scanning and uploading?  It seems absurd somehow.

My friend Kelley has been teaching me the absolute basics of Photoshop, but I plan to buy a book and do most of the learning myself.  I've checked some books from the library on photography, though outdated according to digital technology, still relevant regarding the fundamentals of photography.  Incidentally, this is one of my favorite photographers, who happens to be local to Atlanta.

Some of the recent soapies I've made while practicing my newly learned photoshop skillz:

I've been working with Marc Basehore GM of Aurora Coffee on a couple of custom creations.  I think we've decided on a couple of pretty sweet themes.

double espresso

macchiato (possibly)

This one was an experiment that went right.  I'd seen really whispy swirls on a couple of Etsy soap sites and couldn't figure out how they'd done that.  Then one day I was doing some research on clay in shaving soaps and it clicked; swirl the color with the soap without blending it into the soap first!  This soap got pretty thick pretty fast, so by the time I dumped the mixture of titanium dioxide & kaolin clay in water into the soap, I thought it was going to be a complete disaster.  Turns out I was wrong.  My favorite parts are on the cut sides and the tops after trimming.

black marble

guest size soap