Shooting Jewelry

Each week, (most weeks), I will share my experience with and results of a weekly photo challenge. For this first blog post I will share a challenge from a few weeks ago - Jewelry. I was told that jewelry is one of the more challenging subjects to shoot. After working with jewelry over the past few weeks I will say that is definitely true.

The assignment was to shoot the subject in "environment" and "subject only." So, with a bowl full of rings, bracelets, and a few necklace I set out to shoot jewelry. I love shooting in water and working with the reflection. So many of my shots have the environment of water is also important. My photography teacher once said that "we do not shoot subjects we shoot light." So my shots also were done in filter light or setting sun light, which is the best. I love working in post-production so below I show before and afters of some of my shots. This shows the ability of post-production (Adobe Lightroom is what I use) to transform the original photo into something....elevated. Now, not everyone likes to do "too" much post-production photo work, but I see my original shot as a "sketch" and the post-production shot as the final product.

The above photo is a before and after of my grandmother's antique watch. As you can see the original is dark and a little out of focus. Lightroom allows you to bring up the exposure and identify spots on the subject that you want to highlight and sharpen.

The above photo is a before and after of a wrap bracelet. Again the original shot is under exposed. The final is also tweaked, colors, sharpened and highlighted. The last before and after below shows a shot that is actually overexposed. By bringing the exposure down and sharpening each individual diamond the photo is transformed!

Check back in for next week's blog on light painting and long exposures. Until then Breathe beauty into all you do :)