Paper and Jewelry - 1

One more Jewelry set from my friend Hiroko Ebizaki 

who brought the pieces and styled the set.  We wanted to use  different papers solid colors (this post) , or paper using an old paintings pattern  to create different atmospheres but using the same jewelry (next week!)

The light set up is what I have been using for my most recent studio jewelry shots.  Diffuser on top (but next time I want to try an open bulb) and a gridded hard light at the back. Ring flash as main fill  and cards as needed. Some selected colors editing  upping saturation and luminescence and some limited dodging and burning.

 

Handmade Jewelry by the Window.

 

I shot a little collection of glazed ceramic  earrings. They are and handmade and painted my a Pacific Northwest artist. Every piece is unique!

The art director/artist   wanted  to shoot with natural light and to emphasize the organic feel of the collection, with a minimalist use of props. We used leather, a wood slate and some beach driftwood.

Shot with a wide aperture (f4.0) on an overcast day. Window light and  a white panel on opposite side for fill.

The wide aperture forced me to pay attention to the very narrow focal plane...imagine an inch or two thin slab perpendicular to the lens at about one or two feet away. Where to focus the viewer attention and how to angle the camera compared to the surface on which the earrings rested was the challenge of this shoot. I  handheld the camera rather than using a  tripod was too limiting for the amount of pieces and the time allowed.  I used a shutter speed of 1/80-1/100th and ISO100-200, depending on the light of that moment.

Minimal editing, just cropping and adding some local clarity/contrast and  tone warming.

 

It's a Fine Line

 I had the opportunity to shoot a line of fancy skin care products list for Fine Line .   These are the results. 

I kept post production to a minimum and tried to get a mix of interesting catalog shots and a few more splashy 'hero' shots, where I played with the bottles as if they were skyscrapers.  The one with the incense smoke was a superposition of a few different images.  Keep your windows open before before the studio gets too smokey :).

Diamonds are a photographer's best friend.

 

Yes it has been a while. I recently had the chance to shoot a large jewelry collection, ranging from antiques to gaudy 70ies gold bracelets.  I had not had the opportunity to shoot tiny objects with excessive amount of reflections before so I was excited.  I had to shoot many pieces  in a short time, but I wanted to experiment  and get a few interesting images rather than  the usual clean on white background images for a catalog. 

So I went for a  simple geometric background  and relied on contrast, shadows and bold colors  to highlight the details. I wanted to highlight the 'substance' of these not so subtle pieces.  So I used:

- black plexiglass

-white marble slab samples (from a bathroom remodeling project!)

- dark grey paper background

 I also went for a macro lens, a  stabilized Canon 100mm f2.8 which was super fun to use. I even used it handheld for a few shots (I know I know)  and  images were still quite sharp. 

Set up: One softbox on top and a gridded strobe 1-2  stop down and behind the object, opposite to camera. (remember: the further  away this light is  the harder the shadows will be)   Just remember that  with a macro lens depth of field is truly  minuscule so dial up your flashes, close down  the aperture to  f20+ and beware of glare. Minimal post processing, but make sure to clean up your set from dust!

As simple as it gets. Black on white

This is a simple shot I did for an e-bay listing. Yes good pictures do help and this old super-8 camera sold in..20 minutes? E-bay needs simple, clean looks. I achieved this by

1. placing a large softbox as low and close to the objects as possible. This creates an even light, soft shadows and most of all nice reflection on all the black surfaces. The camera is standing on a table covered with white paper.
2. two reflective cards, one per side. 
3. a small flash positioned behind and below the objects, pointing at a white background about 3ft away.

    Boom! A bit of cleaning in Photoshop for the dust I had failed to remove (tsk tsk me) and the image was ready. 

Shoes in the rain aka: a rock as a prop.

I shot these two images with the same set up: top hard light, ring flash and some cards at the front and  the sides. The rain effect was obtained using a trusty sprizzer and an additional flash  to the left. Assistant: Adrian Rae Btw yes, the set is a concrete back alley.

Moonstruck

I have a small backlog of posts I need to write up. Here is  one I got to finish: a mini shoot I have done while helping  Kate Powell (art director)  and Adrian Rae (main photographer) on their main assignment. The theme was centered on the  moon and so we selected a full moon night and shot at different locations. For these simple images I used a speed light with a very very long snoot, hand held on a boom. I used gel to color balance the light (the filter was actually a light orange, as the ambient light  was very orange... due to street light).  The speedlight turned out to be a good alternative to more powerful systems, as the area to be lit was very small and I did not want any spill. Exposure times were  long, a good chunk of a second. Colors were shifted around in Lightroom. The superimposed nature  prints are from 19th century Japanese artists. Last but not least, Michaela (HMUA) and Mikayla (Model) did a great job.