Good product photos are critical for being able to clearly communicate what is for sale.
And they are indeed, one of my biggest challenges.
I photograph jewelry that is a mix of metal, glass, and stone. Much of it has reflective surfaces and some of it is absolutely not. Lots of semi-precious stones, like blue sandstone, and members of the Tiger Eye family have that sparkles in the reaction to light. A light you have to catch. just. right. For some stones, their appeal is in how they play with light, how they transform it- things that are exceptionally hard to capture.
I started on the dining room table, with natural light when possible. But we have moved into the grey days here in Indiana, and sufficient natural light is rare.
I knew I needed a good way to shoot them in artificial light, without getting horrid reflections and glare.
Our makerspace had a product lightbox donated, and I experimented with that the day after Thanksgiving.
While the picture were not reflective and were low on shadows ( a big achievement), one light was out and the replacement light gave a distinct color shift in all of my photos. In the picture above, the base is actually a grey cloth, but in all the photos it ( and all the jewelry shot) shifted to tan.
It was a real problem for about half the jewelry I shot that day, the colors in the photos were just not accurately representing real life.
Today, David reminded me that years ago we had a green screen setup and there were some glare free light setups in that kit. I dug them out of the bottomless closet in the hall, set them off and did more shooting in the dining room today. I am leaving it set up for more shooting tomorrow ( as we prepare for cyber monday around here). I am MUCH happier with the color quality in the photos, but there is slightly more shadow. I think I need to move them out of the dinning room, and set up with a different angle on the lights. For now, good enough.
We have now entered the meta phase of making art by photographing the wearable art…
