[Jewelry making - Article 00468] - Re: [Orchid] The philosophy of choosing jury photos

[Beth Rosengard]

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Hi Jan,

    First... nice work! Secondly, I agree with Elaine: If the
    backgrounds were the same, the best choice would be two necklaces
    (the ones with stones) and the bracelet shot. 

    Thirdly, I agree with everything Karen said :-). I do think, though,
    that your slate backgrounds are acceptable (just); but they're not as
    optimal as a gradient background would be. 

    And the big #4: Unfortunately, there are a lot more issues with your
    slides than just which three to choose. Take a look at the before and
    after images at the following link and then come back and read the
    rest of this. 

    For jurying purposes, it is *essential* to maximize the size of each
    piece relative to the size of the entire image. In other words, there
    should be as little as possible of the background and as much as
    possible of the jewelry. In your images, there is all kinds of
    extraneous background. 

    In this regard, the most difficult pieces to shoot effectively for
    jurying are full necklaces because they will look too small on screen
    and it's difficult to see detail. There are ways to shoot necklaces
    to make them appear larger in the frame, for instance by scrunching
    them, but this kind of treatment is not always possible. 

    You made a good beginning with your red necklace by wrapping the
    chain but look what I accomplished with a crop. Everything is bigger
    and you can still see plenty of the chain. (If I hadn't been trying
    to maintain your photo aspect ratios, I would have cropped even
    more!) 

    With a piece like your amber necklace it's even tougher, since it
    really needs to be seen laid out in its entirety -- but that doesn't
    mean it can't have a whole lot more presence when maximized! Ditto
    the bracelets. 

    Next: If you're going to take your own photos, you need to learn
    more about lighting your jewelry effectively and, perhaps even more
    importantly, you need to learn how to use a decent photo editing
    application. I use Photoshop Elements (the full Photoshop isn't
    necessary). For your images, I used maybe six Photoshop Elements
    tools to brighten, increase the contrast, sharpen, and lighten
    background shadows. The result is images that pop and, in the case of
    the bracelets, a comparable background to the other two. 

    The whole thing took me less than an hour, probably less time than
    it's taking me to write this post :-). 

    A few years ago, I wrote an article on jurying into shows for
    Lapidary Journal (now Jewelry Artist) which you might find of
    interest, though it's outdated now: 

    http://www.lapidaryjournal.com/archive/399bus.cfm 

    The digital age is here and we all need to learn to negotiate its
    intricacies! 

Hope this helps.
Beth
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