It isn’t easy to take a photo of your jewellery using a phone. Your jewellery is shiny, gorgeous and has several intricate details and would look terrible even if they are the tiniest bit blurry. Even for someone with a lot of practice, jewellery can be tricky to capture. So, here are a few things to keep in mind while photographing your jewellery:
- Although the key is indirect, diffuse light, but different pieces come to life in different conditions. Ditch the flash. It will muck up the picture.
- You can make an area of perfect lighting by building a light box by using a cardboard box and some tracing paper.
- You can also use a light cube. Discard the lights that come with them and replace a 500W tungsten photoflood mounted on a light stand. Don’t forget to adjust the white balance of your phone camera.
- Take photos outside on a bright cloudy day or an hour after sunset for the most beautiful pictures.
- You can also morning light, filtered through a drape. During mid-day summer sun, take photos in the shade using long exposure time.
- Never click pictures in a room lighted with a bulb. The photos get a yellowish tint. You don’t want that of course.
- Focus is another important basic if you want to master the art of capturing your jewellery with a phone. Out of focus pictures are too unprofessional and tell your audience that you don’t care enough to get a better shot. There is no point of having a picture where the subject is unclear.
- For a getting a good focus, don’t hold the phone too close to the subject. Hold it a little bit farther away and then crop the photo to get closer. See the difference for yourself.
- If you are using an iPhone, tap the screen to show the phone where you want to focus.
- Take a lot of photos. As the saying goes, “behind every successful picture, there are 79 unsuccessful ones”. Your chances of getting a good photo become higher with the number of attempts.
- Always try to photograph from an angle for maximum attraction to the details.
- Stability is another important factor. Hold the phone as still as possible. If your hands are unstable, your photo will be totally ruined due to lack of focus.
- If your jewellery has a nice finish like highly polished, try to minimize the reflections like those showing you, your surroundings or the phone itself.
- Create a mood and atmosphere. You can use anything as a background such as old books, music note sheets, sand, grass, rocks, flowers, vintage furniture or simply textured fabrics or paper.
- For earrings, position them in the ‘talking to each other’ way instead of side by side.