taking 'clear page' photos

i made this layout as an entry to the Visual Creations Hambly challenge. i thought it would be cool to join it since i've been hooked on making clear pages right after the SMIdol Scrapfest contest made me get over my fear of using them. after making this page though, i found it equally challenging to take pictures of them! i stuck the transparent LO on black fabric which i hung on our room divider. but being all glossy, it was hard to get a good angle that eliminates the glare. i almost always take LO photos near the window because the natural light makes the color come up better and the glitters or bling also show up better. however, where there are lots of light, there are also lots of glare. here was my first shot of it.

so i called my trusty assistant to stand on a chair and hold up a white sheet by the window. that did the trick! no more glare because it diffused the light and removed the reflection of the grills from the window. however, i was still not too happy with the result because i thought it just made the LO look like it was made with black graph printed PPS when i wanted to show the transparency as you can see on this photo here.

so i tried again. this time, i propped the flexible Hambly transparency background on a clear 12 by 12 acrylic sheet so it would be stiff enough to stand. i could have used a plate stand to prop the LO up but i didn't have one so i stacked throw pillows up and covered them all up with a white fabric sheet. the pillows weren't high enough so our blue sofa was peeking through but perhaps that added to the effect of showing the transparency better. the slight setback is that colors are a little less saturated because i had to move away from the better window light and had to make do with the florescent lighting. but i guess the overall effect is probably better.

although i have used Hambly Prints but twice yet, i actually like them a lot. i think they are also a natural complement to my clear acrylic sheet products, too. i have several sheets of Hamblys but have hardly used whole sheets of it yet on one layout. so when the challenge rule was to use 2 Hambly products, i found it totally difficult! well, ok... it was probably due to the fact that i did not want to use one all up on a single LO kasi sayang, e. after all, they are quite pricey... at least for kuripots like me. but i keep getting stuck so i finally gave in. i used 2 whole sheets here, one Hambly paper print (Big Vintage Circle) and a transparency print (Mini Graph) as the base. despite it, i kinda liked the way it turned out. it looks different from what i usually do and i got to try something new (this is the first time i tried printing the focal photo on transparency). i probably never would have thought to do it this way so i say hurray for difficult challenges :-D