The advantages of blue photo floods are: They duplicate outdoor light, and can be use with daylight film. They are inexpensive, and easy to use. You can see exactly what you are going to get, you don't have to guess. The disadvantages are: They only last for about two hours, and as they die, the color shifts to yellow. They are a fire hazard. They get extremely hot, so care must be taken to use sockets designed for hot bulbs, and nothing must touch them while they are turned on. Several times I have had bulbs that literally exploded when they died. The flying pieces have actually burned holes in my carpeting (imagine what they might do to your quilt) I am careful not to put my face in front of the bulbs when I'm turning them on, and I NEVER leave the room when they are on.

When I'm photographing my quilts, I use blue photofloods on light stands. These are inexpensive ($6-$7 each) bulbs that overcome the yellow of normal incandescent light. These bulbs have usually been available at camera shops, but they are getting harder to find all the time. Usually I have to special order them any more. If it is large quilt, I may use as many as 10 bulbs. The bulbs last for up to two hours, and they get very hot. Sometimes they explode when they burn out, so use them very carefully, only with shades and sockets that are designed for high temperature bulbs, and never leave the room when they are turned on. The glass fragments are so hot when they explode that they have melted holes in my rug.

My older slides were all taken with Kodachrome asa 25, which has an extremely fine grain, and makes beautiful reds and yellows. This film has a major reciprocity factor when you leave the shutter open a long time. (i.e. it gets darker faster, the longer the shutter is open) I always doubled the shutter speed when shooting Kodachrome 25, and on larger darker quilts, I often set the f stop at as low as 8.

More recently I have switched to Fuji Velvia 50 professional slide film. I still double the recommended shutter speed, but I shoot all my photos with an f stop of 22. This allows me to get the entire surface of even the largest quilts in focus. This film is almost as fine grained as Kodachrome 25, and doesn't seem to have a reciprocity problem when the exposure time is longer. It seems to do pretty well on both the warm and cool colors. I still haven't found a film that will accurately record chartreuse (one of my favorites).  I buy the "professional" version of this film, which is kept in the refrigerator at the camera store, and I keep it in the refrigerator at home until I'm ready to use it.

I know some quilters who only shoot with tungsten film and tungsten lights. You can get inexpensive tungsten light bulbs, and tungsten film. Personally, I haven't used it much, because if there is any daylight coming into the room the slides will go very blue. It needs to be shot in a room where there is no daylight at all, or after dark. Since I don't have a dark room, and I don't want to shoot photos at night when I'm tired, I don't use it.

For prints, I have been using Kodak Royal Gold ASA 25 film.  This had a very fine grain, and could be used with the same lighting as the Fuji Velvia 50 slide film. Unfortunately Kodak has discontinued making this film, so I have recently switched to Kodak Royal Gold 100 asa.  I usually shoot half my prints at the default exposure, and half at double the shutter speed.  Often I can't tell the difference when I get my prints back.  Since I am using relatively slow film, I always use a tripod when photographing my quilts.

When I make a new quilt, I keep one set of slides in a separate binder. These are master originals, which are never sent out, but can be used to make duplicate slides. This binder is kept in a separate building.

I have a additional binders for "process" slides, which I often use in my lectures, slides of my studio, installations of my work, and those embarrassing promotional photos we all have to have. I have three binders of work by others, in alphabetical order by artist, with tabs, so I can find them easily. I go through this collection of work by others often, when I'm organizing and updating my lectures.

My 3x5 and 4x6 prints and negatives are stored in a series of 4x6 file drawers, in alphabetical order, with divider tabs, so I can see the name of the quilt at a glance. 8x10 prints are stored in a regular file drawer, in alphabetical order, with a separate file folder for each quilt.

I use Avery 5267 Laser labels for my slides. They are ½" x 1¾". They come 80 to a sheet, and they exactly fit on a slide mount.

I label the slides with the title of the quilt, the year it was made, the dimensions, the materials, and the techniques plus the word "top" and an arrow in the appropriate direction on one label, for the full shot of the quilt. 

For the details, I skip the techniques, and substitute the work DETAIL in caps.  I put copies of these labels on all my slides as soon as they come back from the developer, and then store them in alphabetical order in notebooks, so I can find them easily. 

On a second label, I have my name, address, and phone #.  I don't put this label on the slide until I'm ready to send it off to the show, because galleries don't want your address and phone # on the slides they keep on file.  I have a second set of labels with just my name for sending to galleries.