Photography practice needed!

One of my goals today was to take some pictures of all the medallions and edgings I've been working on in the past few months. Unfortunately, my camera apparently didn't think that was a good plan because after taking a few pictures the battery died, so it's now resting on the charger.  The pictures I took turned out awful anyways because I wasn't in good lighting (i.e., I was being lazy and trying to take them from our couch), so that's probably a good thing.  I'll try again in the next few days.

I need to find something to use for a background too.  Lighter color is good for some but maybe not others.  I want to show my tatting off as best as I can (of course!) so I will do some experimenting.  How do you all take your pictures? Where do you do it, and what do you use for backgrounds? Natural light is best for the other pictures I like to take but I'm wondering if it will wash out some of the colors in my tatting.  I think I'll enjoy figuring this out.  I've got a nice camera that I can either set manually or use an option that adjusts everything automatically depending on light, etc. That's what I normallly use, but I'd really like to understand more about  how to make these adjustments on my own.

This picture was the best of the lot, so I'm going to go ahead and post it to feel like I accomplished something today.  It's entry #2 for the 25 Motif Challenge, a medallion from Anne Orr's Classic Tatting Patterns in Lizbeth size 20. I can't remember the exact color but I've seen lots of people use it because it's so pretty!

Obviously my "couch photography" was NOT a good idea, including the wooden-topped lap board I chose for a background. Next pictures will be better!

P.S. Thanks, Jane, for following me! I really admire (read: LOVE) your work, so I feel like a tatting world celebrity is following this little blog I've started. You made me smile.