What is White?

The cottons I dyed last week are still floating around the house. The workshop was postponed and I've been distracted by other priorities, so they haven't even been ironed yet. Another task on the "to do" list is to learn more about my camera and how it handles colour. This morning I've brought those two unfinished projects together in a simple experiment.

Here are two pics of my hand-dyed cottons taken within a few seconds of each other:

• same fabrics
• same light
• same camera

The only difference is the corner of white paper in the second pic.

I wanted to see how much difference there would be in the colours. The camera has a feature called "white balance". It was something to do with the way the camera "sees" colour. I think it's as if the camera is looking to answer the question, "what is white?" so it can display the other colours properly. So, I've learned to make it easy by providing a bit of white in the picture for reference. I'm going to have to find some creative ways to do that in my textile shots. Or maybe I can read the camera manual and see if I can get the camera to "remember" white while it takes another shot. I think I read something about that in the book, but I'd much rather play with colours than read manuals! Hmmmmmm . . . .