Jewelry Photography

Like a lot of things in photography, lighting jewelry or any small item for a nice photograph isn't as easy as it looks.  For this week's post I wanted a nice picture of the Pandora charm set that I got Amy for our 30th wedding anniversary.  As you may know from my post a couple weeks ago, we celebrated this special occasion with a trip to Disney World and that led to the choice of charms for her gift.

3 speedlight flashes with main light in front.

I recently watched a video course on Lynda.com that was taught by a person that photographs jewelry for a living and I applied what I learned to this week's photo shoot.

The setup with 3 speedlight wireless flashes.

Before jumping into the setup that produced this week's marquee shot, I thought I would try a setup that I originally thought would work.  My anniversary gift from Amy was a very nice flash system from Nikon, the R1 wireless close-up speedlight system.  Although these flash units are designed to mount to the front of a macro lens, the also come with stands that allow them to be placed in the scene for more lighting options.  I also brought in my Nikon SB900 speedlight, giving me a total of 3 flashes to try and uniformly light the scene.

3 speedlights with the main light up and behind the subject.

I tried controlling the relative power output of the 3 flashes, something Nikon's wireless flash system allows you to do from controls on your camera.  I also tried different shots with the main light in front casting its shadow to the back of the necklace and with the flash in back casting the shadows forward.  Although these shots all looked pretty good, the shadows cast by the strobes were just too distracting.

Homemade light box for lighting the necklace.

It was time to set things up as described in the tutorial I watched.  This type of close-up photography where the desire is a diffuse soft light really requires a light box to achieve the required lighting.  One of the neat things about the tutorial was instructions on how to make a simple light box from a sheet of white foam core poster board obtained from a local art store.  With the makeshift light box complete, the scene was then illuminated with a single flash fired through the hole in the side covered with 4 layers of tracing paper to soften the light as much as possible.  Once the diffuse light enters the chamber of the light box it bounces off the white walls and top producing very uniform lighting and extremely soft shadows.  The effect is quite amazing and makes the resulting image much more pleasing.

College class ring from UMO class of 1984.

While I had the setup in place I decided to photograph a couple of other items.  First was my college class ring that my mother gave me as a graduation gift when I graduated from The University of Maine in 1984.  The ring has seen a lot of wear from a lot of wear and that is picked up with this extreme close-up.  The rich color of the gold also stands out.

Pearl from Japan region of Epcot.

The other item I photographed was the pearl pendant that Amy picked up while we were in Disney World.  The pearl came from the Japan section of Epcot and was harvested from an oyster that Amy selected.  The show put on as part of the harvesting of the pearl adds to the fun of the experience (see video below) and provided Amy with a unique souvenir for our trip.  After the pearl is removed and cleaned you have the option of getting it mounted while you wait.  Amy chose a nice silver  pendant that would show off the pearl.  For this photo I chose to back it with black velvet to accentuate the silver and the pearl.