Womanwise 16
14/12/09 21:25 Filed in:
Technique
This cover for Womanwise turned out
to be a still life, with no woman in sight. Ah well. To the
challenge at hand. Photography to be done on location of premium
jewels from BR Jewellers. This was, after all, a photo of roughly
TT$80,000 worth of diamond rings. I could have walked with the big
kit, but this project is about making the best of portable
speedlights and dammit; this was an opportunity to see what the wee
flashes could really do.
I’m no jewellery photographer. If you
want to see some really good jewellery photography by a Trini
photographer, have a look at the work of my good friends at
Sanchez-Arias.
Here’s what you need to know about jewellery. The work is generally
defined by what it reflects. At the highest levels of the craft,
reflectors and gobos (black cards that go between the light and the
subject) are interleaved to create beautiful, liquid reflections
and contrasting anti-highlights on the surfaces of the
jewellery.
I added some silver reflectors and a
matte black card to my usual WW gear for the shoot.
Some careful angling, testing and chimping of the results, not
particularly deft tweezering of the product around and some shifts
of the reflective cards, I got something useful for the
cover.
I shot the final image with a Canon 100mm macro lens. Next up,
jewellery on a subject. A very special subject.
Tags: Womanwise
