Photographing jewelry...

This recent client of mine has created a website for her passion - various designer accessories brought to all the lovely fashionistas in one place. Whether you're looking for something chic or affordable, it's all there.

We have probably photographed everything from bags and belts to jewelry, shades and shoes. Yesterday we did leggings, which was even more fun, since it involved a model - beautiful Stephanie Hancock, who was such a great pleasure to work with, by the way!

What I wanted to write about today is something that I observed over the time of our collaboration.

I photograph jewelry for a few different clients. Each client has their own need for the pictures and I try to think ahead what would be the best way to keep the mood and setting that they already have for their brand or website and improve it at the same time. There's always so much room to improve, right?


Photographing rings and bracelets is pretty straightforward.
 But when it comes to earrings, there's a certain challenge. You want it to look nice, and at the same time - display them hanging, since that seems to be their natural state of being used ;).

How do you display earrings nicely while they're hanging? Yes, you can actually use someone's ear... or hang them up on a thread and then remove things in post production, but that can run expensive, since you're merging two images in post - no two earrings will hang nicely apart on the same thread :) - they tend to fall together, and they also hang under the same angle, and you want to display both side and the front, right?
So you need to stay away from what will look the coolest and find a solution that won't break the startup's pocket. Most earrings won't lay down on the side either, so, hanging them would be the only solution. There are also these special stands for displaying the earrings, but I haven't gotten to acquire one yet...


So far, I think, that having them on an ear is the most affordable way. But I don't see that method being widely popular on the fashion websites.

May be, photographing them only from the front will suffice, and then they can just lay on the table top setup, without the expensive post-production and what not. But some won't lay straight either, or look completely different when they're on a flat surface. That's a lot of things to consider :). I guess that's why there are photographers who specialize in shooting jewelry as product. It's a whole separate thing to get a good hang on in order to be able to shoot them fast and effectively.