Jewelry Photography

“The saying “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” could scarcely be more relevant that in the creative sector. Painters, illustrators, designers and photographers alike all view the things and beings around them with their own individual…

The photography of jewelry can achieve a whole lot more than just depicting products. It can focus on unique details that generate very different feelings and can contribute to the visual communication of the jewelry’s inspiration. The…

English enamels made during the period 1750 to 1840 were chiefly ornamented with transfer printed images and mottos. While the most important innovations in this manufacture were connected with these transfer processes, other new working…

This vertical photography set can be constructed inexpensively to photograph small objects such as jewelry and vessels from high angles. Make the modified box of ¾” plywood, about 12 inches wide and 16 inches deep, with a height of…

As a former staff photographer for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Sheldan Collins has photographed an extraordinary range of art objects from one of the world’s most extensive art collection. In his new book, How to Photograph Works of…

This article is one of a series of articles from Metalsmith Magazine “Art and Technics” talking about techniques in craftsmanship and design.  For this 1992 Spring issue, Tim McCreight talks about superstitions and superstitious…

The successful documentation of finished work is of vital concern to every artist. Excellent slides make better teaching tools, and it goes without saying that the quality of photographs weighs heavily when work is being considered for juried…

In response to Marilyn Shaw’s article “Photographic Images on Refractory Metals” (Metalsmith, Summer ’84, page 32), we have researched the possibilities of a safer alternative of producing photographic images…

The following article explains photo techniques used to transfer images onto refractory metals. These findings were developed during my graduate studies at California State University, Long Beach, California. Traditionally photo resists…

This article, “Transparency Making for Photoetching”,  is the first of two parts written by Allan Liu and Carol Webb. Check out the second part of this article series “Photoetching for the Studio Jeweler.”…

In photoetching a photo transparency defines the area of a metal plate to be etched. The transparency is the control unit, the program, that prescribes which parts of the light-sensitive resist will chemically harden, polymerize, to become…

Steve Satow shares his procedure for customized light box for your jewelry photography projects and customized bench shelf for more storage spaces on your bench. Customized Light Box This is a picture of the Light Box in use, using 4 of…

The kind of lights and lighting that I recommend for our drop shadow system are photofloods (type B). You can buy these bulbs at many photo stores but you should shop around: prices vary from 2 dollars to 10 dollars per bulb. They are a pretty standard…

Depth of field refers to the amount of the object that is in focus (the depth that is in focus). When you look through the camera’s viewfinder on a close – up shot you may notice that part of the object is in focus and part is not. You can change the focus…

Three – dimensional objects will be well served by the methods described before, such as overhead diffuse lighting, fill card and mirror use. For flat things (like prints) use copy set – ups which primarily consist of extremely even light on…

A note on slide developing: you want your slides to be developed for the best quality possi¬ble. If you want to impress your local photo shop, you go in and you ask “do you do dip and dunk E-6 photo processing?” Dip and dunk means…

Reflective surfaces are a special case. I remember seeing an Art in America magazine once, and on the cover was a picture of some really famous sculptor’s work in a Washington, DC gallery. It was a large, bulbous, bronze casting. It was highly…

The film that I’m going to recommend, and that I use myself, is 64 ISO Tungsten Ecktachrome film. It only comes in 36 – shot rolls. It is used with photoflood bulbs. Even though it says 64 ISO on the box, in actual practice you set the ISO on the…

A vertical copy stand is sometimes used for shooting prints, drawings, jewelry and other fairly flat objects. A copy stand is designed so that one has vertical movement of the camera while it faces down. There are usually fixed lights at 45 degree…

If an object will sit by itself on the shooting surface this is not a problem but often it needs to be propped up in some way. Even objects that will sit well on a flat surface sometimes need tilting slightly towards the camera by placing something…

Now we’re going to start talking about taking the picture – actually getting closer to taking the image. There’s a couple of things that we need to think about. One of them is the size of the object in proportion to the image area (remember any cropping…

We are assuming you have a 35 mm camera. You will need a ‘single lens reflex’ (SLR) camera with a ‘through the lens’ metering system (TTL). This type of camera allows you to see through the viewfinder what will be recorded…

These are some check lists to use when preparing to phtograph objects.

The use of ‘Plexiglas L’s’ is an extremely effective small scale lighting system. You take white, translucent Plexiglas, and you make squares approximately two feet (60 cm) on each side. Then you make two L – shaped constructions by gluing…

If, like me, you consider yourself a successful photographer, you may be skeptical about products on the market that promise to improve your jewelry photos. I had a recent opportunity to review one such product, the MK Gem eBox, a light box designed…

There is nothing that will block the path towards acceptance in a juried situation more quickly than a poor quality or unintelligible image– be it digital or film. The goal is to convey as much information about the piece pictured as possible…

The photography of jewelry can achieve a whole lot more than just depicting products. It can focus on unique details that generate very different feelings and can contribute to the visual communication of the jewelrys inspiration. Unfortunately,…

The goal of this guide is to help you create images of your jewelry that you can be proud of, whether for simple record keeping purposes, for appraisal work or for advertising locally or on the Internet. Buried in here is a guide to a simple setup…

Good photos of your work, or pieces you take in for repair, are invaluable. These small-scale photos, however, can be tricky to shoot without the following tips.

Do not get caught in the dark – make certain your shop is well lit. In the jewelry shop, two types of lighting are used. 1. Ambient or General Lighting. 2. Task Lighting. It is best to have a combination of the two in your shop. It is best to have a combination…