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.

PhotographyWomanwise