A Thousand Words

On a late-summer day in a year I don’t remember, Gale Zucker and a half dozen knitters came to my house in the woods for one of Gale’s first photography workshops for knitters.

It was a new idea. Blogs were still a big deal, Ravelry was the hot new thing, and both were making knitters wish they knew how to take better pictures.

I was probably the most eager student in class. Ann and I had been blogging for several years, and although photos were essential to that medium, I hadn’t gotten comfortable taking pictures with my mini digital camera. I wanted a simple, non-technical approach, and I had no instincts for it.

I knew Gale could help me, because I’d seen her in action. Gale was the photographer for our second book. In 2007, over several days of shooting in Tennessee and New York, she made images that captured not just crisp images of the knitwear we showed in the book, but the sunshiney, accessible vibe we wanted.

Archival image of Gale on the Monteagle, Tennessee, shoot for our second book, making it, Christmas morning on a hot afternoon in July 2007.

What we did that afternoon at my house was slow and simple. Gale showed us images to illustrate her pointers on composition—the work that happens in your mind before you take the photo. Then we went rambling outdoors, laying handknits on sun-dappled patches of moss, sticking them to trees, or enlisting each other as models. With Gale overseeing things and her voice in our ears, we took some really cool pictures. For me, the before-and-after was extreme: my pictures immediately got better.

Gale today, still keeping the vibes sunshiney and accessible.

In the intervening years, I’ve thought of Gale on the many occasions when I’ve needed to take a photo to show MDK readers something that I was trying to say about knitting. My photos are not professional, but thanks to Gale, they show what I see and say what I want them to say. Whether I’m using photos as notes to myself or to share a silly dog moment with the dog’s human siblings, they do the job better because of the big ideas and little tips I got from Gale so long ago.

Things have changed a lot since then. In texts and social media, people share images all the time now, with an ease that would have been unimaginable even a decade ago. Photos are more important than ever, and it’s satisfying to take decent ones.

I’m really looking forward to getting together with Gale tomorrow. Not at my house this time, but on Zoom! Gale has now taught photography to many more crafters and to students in her college classes.

The big new thing I’m looking forward to learning is how to edit photos in Snapseed, a free app on my phone. What sorcery is this? Break it down for me, Gale! I don’t need to know all the buttons—just the good ones.

Can Snapseed get a stray dog hair off of a handknit? Can it warm up the blue cast on a north-facing winter windowsill? Asking for myself, in both cases.

Join Us Tomorrow!

If you’d like to improve your own photos, of knitwear, silly dogs, and everything else, please join us tomorrow for Gale’s virtual workshop: Photographing Your Knits. Read more and sign up here.

See you in class!