PHOTOGRAPHS and JEWELRY and FASHION and BUSINESS
You have to be creative in how you stage the set for photographing your jewelry. If people are web-surfing, you want to entice them to stay on your page a little longer, rather than click-thru to somewhere else. If they are looking at items in a magazine or newspaper, you want them to linger a bit longer than turning the page.
I first began looking for some good ideas for photographing jewelry at the 7th International Festival of Fashion Photography in Cannes. There were few examples of jewelry photos, however. These included two by Marc Turlan
marc turlan
marc turlan
These didn’t excite me, so I kept web-surfing and came across the website of a fashion photographer names Niva Kedem. Now I was getting closer to the mark.
Her website:
www.nivakedem.com
She groups her photos into photo-style categories, so you can actually learn a lot about imaging on her website, from how she groups her own examples.
niva kedem
niva kedem
niva kedem
niva kedem
It’s difficult to photograph jewelry. You need to convey details in the piece, and the details are small. You want to convey a sensibility about the piece — its emotions, its sexuality and sensuality, its use of materials, its relevance to certain contexts. Many of the components have reflective qualities, which can change colors in photos, or affect the colors of the nonreflective surfaces around it. You want to convey the artist’s style.
“The photography of jewelry can achieve a whole lot more than just depicting products. It can focus on unique details that generate very different feelings and can contribute to the visual communication of the jewelrys inspiration. Unfortunately, we see time and again that jewelry designers adopt a strangely ambivalent position when faced with how to communicate their products. This applies in particular to jewelry manufacturers in the initial stages of their careers. It is a crying shame that there are so many designers able to achieve the highest standards of precision and perfect craftsmanship in the production of jewelry and then proceed to take inferior photos of it that in no way do justice to their own excellent work. Conversely, established designers who are familiar with trade fair business and with handling the media have usually already discovered or experienced how important it is to define a clear approach in communicating ones own style of jewelry and its special features. An idea of who is or may be the target group for the jewelry can help the photographer or designer find a suitable language of images…. —
By Christel Trimborn
Spring 2004″
Learn To Bead 