How to Photograph Jewelry
By following this tutorial, you will be able to take clear, sharp, professional looking photos of your jewelry and have full confidence to post them on social media.
Materials:
1. DSLR camera (not a phone camera)
2. A couple of different wood samples. (you can find some for $0.75-$1.00 at Home Depot or Lowes)
3. A couple of necklaces that you want to photograph
Steps:
1. Find a place that has a lot of natural lighting. Being next to a window works great. Set down one of the wood samples on a table or floor next to the window to get good lighting. Make sure that when you look at the wood sample, there are not any light reflection spots or shiny spots. You may need to turn off the lights to avoid reflections. Below is a picture of a variety of wood samples that can be used to take photos on.
2. Take a necklace and place the charm or main point of the necklace that you want to photograph in the middle (horizontally) of the wood board, but move it down (vertically) towards the bottom, leaving a gap between the bottom of the necklace and the edge of the wood sample.
3. Once you get the necklace in the correct position, make sure the chain is straight. The chain should be in one line, straight up from the charm. This helps the necklace and picture to look more pleasing and professional in the final photo. As you can see in the photo below, the necklace is straight and placed vertically straight to the necklace.
4. Turn on your camera, take off the lens cap (if you have one) and make sure it is on a no flash mode. You can find the camera modes usually on the top of the camera on a little wheel.
5. Turn the lens (front of the camera) to the right by pushing the little button down, so it is zoomed all the way in. This allows the camera to capture a close up of the necklace, capture all details, and cut off the sides of the wood sample.
6. Get down to the level of the wood sample and focus the camera on the charm or focal point of the necklace. Make sure it is not blurry and that the right section is in focus. Hold down the button, that takes the picture, half way to focus and when the picture is in focus, you can push it down the rest of the way to finish the picture.
7. Before you take the picture, make sure that all sides of the wood sample are cut off in the view spot on your camera. You want the final picture to look like it was taken on a huge, nice background.
8. Take several pictures from several different angles and using different colored wood samples to find the perfect look that you want.
9. Check all photos for unwanted light spots or edges of the wood sample. Retake photos if needed.
10. After you find the photo that you like, you are ready to edit and post!
Here are some examples of finished photos and how they looked after editing!
All of these jewelry pieces can be found on emiandt.com. Be sure to check out our "Behind The Scenes of Emi & T Photography" blog post for more photography ideas!