Fun Photo Shoots on a Budget – Jewelry, Gems

Low Cost, Easy Photo Ideas for Professional, Beautiful Pictures

Jun 9, 2009

Open up the jewelry boxes and play around with everything from cuff links to necklaces. Jewelry, both natural and synthetic, can be made into beautiful artwork.

Shooting jewelry can be very aesthetically rewarding – not only are you beginning with a beautiful and visually intriguing subject, but you can manipulate the background and foreground in order to create some neat scenery! Taking photographs of jewelry of all types, whether they be traditional, natural, hand-crafted, or costume can be highly rewarding and starts in your own jewelry box!

Traditional Gold, Silver, and Diamond

Traditional jewelry, that is more formal jewelry such as the type commonly found in retail outlets such as Charm, Ben Moss, or People's, is best suited to very simple, tasteful, and minimalist photography. This is because the pieces themselves are usually so delicate and small in size that placing them in competition with other stark colours or busy patterns will cause them to get lost in the mix.

Much like the very popular television commercials produced by People's, oftentimes the best way to shoot traditional jewelry is on a black satin or velvet background – or even black marble if you have access to a dark marble surface with very little reflection to spoil the exposure. If you are looking for a less conventional showcase or shot dealing with traditional jewelry, model it! Shooting pieces while they are being worn, closely cropped, will normally yield excellent results. Not only does it emphasize the wearability of the piece, but it also adds a more emotional element than the more sterile fabric or stone background.

Colour accenting (retaining and emphasizing the colour in certain areas of a photograph while reducing the rest to grayscale) is also a great post-production tip to keep in mind with traditional, formal jewelry worn on a model. It can really bring a bit of class and lustre out from the shot if done in a conservative fashion – or it can add a very artistic edge to a photo if done with a more freehand, irregular filter in mind.

Natural Materials for Natural Jewelry

Shooting natural, or handcrafted jewelry – commonly comprised of semi-precious gemstones, wood, glass, or shell beads – is in many ways more dynamic than shooting traditional jewelry for a few reasons. Firstly, you are not constricted so easily to a choice of backdrop and foreground, nor are you as constricted conceptually or visually – these pieces tend to be much more colourful and larger so they do not require an acute focus to the same degree that more delicate, smaller, less colourful jewelry might.

Dyed or natural reeds or bamboo, fabric swatches such as scarves, and natural materials such as sand or grass can make an excellent backdrop for natural jewelry – emphasizing the organic and assymetrical nature of most of the pieces that are found in this particular category. While colourful backgrounds may still be used – they often require a prop of some type to remain interesting and relevant - anything ranging from a vase to a floral arrangement can be very effective in conveying shape, beauty, and colour co-ordination.

Whether one is shooting a more staid and conservative set of photographs for a more polished and high society look or having a little fun with funky colour swatches and extremely unorthodox fashions - jewelry presents a great opportunity to take some visually appealing photographs with subjects of compelling beauty.

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The copyright of the article Fun Photo Shoots on a Budget – Jewelry, Gems in Photography is owned by Nicholas Morine. Permission to republish Fun Photo Shoots on a Budget – Jewelry, Gems in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.