Experimenting with a white background for photos

So after getting all overexcited about backgrounds in this post, a thread was started on the Artfire forums about trying to use 'catalogue style' photos to see if they affected views and sales. I tried out a couple of shots, but I wasn't keen. Anyway, I stumbled across this blog, with a handy tutorial on making a white background for your photos using a cardboard box and some foamboard.

So I tried it out - first with a cardboard box and some white card. This was not successful. So I managed to find some foamboard at our local craft shop, and here's what I made:

I just used the board taped together, rather than trying to fix it to a cardboard box. It seems to work OK. And here's the shot I got of that ring:

It's a quick snapshot, taken in quite poor light (there was some sunshine earlier today, but it's raining now), but it's not bad. It's not as white as the next photo, so I could improve on it.

I also took a pic of these new button earrings which I made earlier on:

The earrings were being tricky little beggars to photograph, so the pic is slightly out of focus.

I don't know if I really like the white background or not yet. I think I will need to take some more pics in order to decide. I also did a sort of comparision with another recent make.

This is the sort of photo I'd normally take these days - patterned background (possibly this is a bit too busy, but I liked the colours) and a prop of some description:

Here is the same pendant with a plain background and prop:



And here it is in the new white background box:

It's not exactly a scientific study, as the last photo uses a different set up without any props. But give me your opinion anyway - which picture do you prefer?