A New Opportunity

 When you marry a woman that doesn’t wear much jewelry you don’t get much of an opportunity to play with gem stones. Well, thanks to an invitation from Debi Beauregard to join her on a photoshoot for a jeweler friend of hers I did get to play with shooting jewelry. I knew that photographing jewelry was difficult but it was much harder than I had anticipated.

I know these are not professional by any means but I think for a couple of amateurs we didn’t do too badly. It was worth fighting heavy rains both going and coming to have the opportunity. We went it to it know knowing much about exactly what we would be shooting or even the amount of space we would have to set up. As it turns out the space was very cramped but workable. There were a number of things that would have made the shoot better such as a better way to block reflections from the metal, stands to support the pieces above the table level so that lights could be used underneath. We solved that by suspending a sheet of white plexiglass between two tea boxes
we found in a kitchen cabinet. I fortunately carried a sheet of white nylon which we used for a makeshift tent and the store owner, also a photographer had purchased a few items in her own attempt to photograph the pieces.

If we should get another opportunity we will go in much better equipped. I carried a full studio of stuff suitable for photographing a person but hardly the right equipment for photographing a ring.

I greatly appreciate Debi’s invitation, so much that when I packed up my equipment I included her Nikon Speedlight. She got my umbrella. We compared notes and I came out ahead.