Behind The Scenes of Emi & T Photography
Below I am going to show you the behind the scenes of the photography for Emi & T Boutique, tell you about what camera and equipment that I use, show you the before and after of some pictures and how I actually took them and got the look that I wanted.
First of all, the camera that you use really does matter. Most of the time, you will be able to tell if someone is using a DSLR camera or their phone. Quality matters when it comes to selling a product. You want your product to look the best as you can. The camera that I use is a Nikon D3300.
I absolutely love this camera! The quality of pictures that it takes is amazing! It is definitely worth the money to get this camera. The camera comes with a basic 18-55 mm lens, but I also have another lens that is 50-200 mm. I do not use the other lens for my jewelry photography though because it is mostly for zooming in on things.
If you are going to want to upload your photos to your phone to post on Instagram or another social media site, then I would recommend getting a wireless mobile adapter. I use the Nikon WU-1a Wireless Mobile Adapter to transfer my photos to my phone. All you have to do is plug it into the side of your camera and then connect your phone to the wifi that your camera has. Then you have to get an app called WMU. I can download hundreds of photos in a matter of minutes! I do this to get all my photos onto my phone to edit and then post on Instagram.
Another important piece of equipment that I use are reflectors. I use the Neewer 43-inch collapsible light reflectors. They work great if you want to diffuse the light or get rid of shadows. I used this kit to take the flat lay picture below. ​
I wish that I had a picture of the behind the scenes of this flat lay picture. It would have been pretty funny. To take this picture, I was actually outside in my backyard. I put a piece of white foam board on our outdoor table and then set up all the pieces. I then stood on a chair to get the right angle while my mom was holding the white diffuser in front of the sunlight to soften the shadows up and while my sister was holding up the shiny reflector to even out the sunlight. I think it is safe to say that this picture took me a good half hour or more. :) I then uploaded the raw pictures into Photoshop and took out as much of the shadows that I could and lightened up some of the items in the photo.
Here is another example of how I used the white poster board at a backdrop.
Next, I am going to show the behind the scenes of some of the pictures that I have taken.
As you look at the pictures below, you will notice that they are taken on what looks like a wood floor. Well, you are correct about it being wood floor, but how big is the wood floor?
To take pictures like these, I use little squares of wood floor samples. I just zoom in enough that you can't see the edges of the wood sample. As you can tell the darker wood samples are my favorite! You can get these samples from Home Depot, Lowes or any home store for really cheap. They look great for backdrops, and even though they are inexpensive, they don't look it!
Then next item that I use for backdrops is paper. Yes, you heard me right. I use paper for backdrops. I use the same technique for the paper that I use for the wood samples. I just have to crop out the edges.
At Hobby Lobby, or any other craft store you can buy paper that looks like wood. They work perfect and look pretty real. I edit them later with VSCO to change the color, brightness, and sharpness to add to the look. ​
Now here is the part where you can see the behind the scenes of the main photo that I used for this blog and posted on Instagram. I set up the white poster board against the brick of my house. They I used another Nikon camera and held it in front of the board. I actually had to tape the bracelet to the camera to get it to stay in place. Then I took about 30 pictures until I finally found the one I liked. Then I uploaded it to my phone and edited it on VSCO and then on Airbrush. Below are the before and after pictures of the camera photo.
BEFORE AFTER
You can see that the camera did most of the work, but I simply brightened, straightened, sharpened, applied contrast and a slight filter to the image. I just enhanced the image to make it look clearer and better.
If you would like me to do a whole blog post about how I edit my photos, comment below. All the jewelry from these photos can be found on emiandt.com. Please share this with your friends if you liked it and follow all or Emi & T Boutique's social media accounts!