Photographing Your Indie Handcrafted Jewelry for Your Web Site

It really is true a picture is worth a thousand words and what does the second one say...

It YELLS amateur. What am I looking at anyway!

Photographing my jewelry for media and my website are something that I struggle with and continue to struggle with. I know that I have posted about this before but I just can NOT stress enough how important clear crisp pictures are to your potential customers and media exposure.

Table Top Studio offers wonderful tips for photographing jewelry no matter what your medium (silver, glass, crystals, etc...)

Rena Klingenberg at Home Jewelry Business Success Tipsalso has some photography tips for photographing jewelry.

Check out Ganoskin's article on jewelry photography

MK Digital Direct also has a photography tips for jewelry section.

These are just a few resources that I have used to educate myself on how to improve my jewelry photography which is a continual work in progress.

The things that made the BIGGEST difference for me were...
1. Getting to know & love my camera
--adjust white balance
--adjust depth of field
--adjust exposure

2. Proper lighting
--I use daylight bulbs that run at 3000k. I purchased them off eBay for about $6 each.

3. Photo tent
--Helps diffuse the light.

4. White Card Stock
--used to custom white balance prior to shooting photos of jewelry

5. Keeping a Photo journal
--documenting settings for each shot
--tedious I know but it has made a big difference over time especially since I shoot silver, gold, glass beads and crystals! :)

Hope this helps another frustrated jewelry artist! Let me know if you have any other resources I should know of! Please and Thanks!