Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Still on hold?

I have a dozen or so pieces polished, stones set, and ready to go.
So what's the hold up?
Pictures. Photographs. This is painful to admit. I love photography, I've been told for a long time that I'm good at it, and yet I can't seem to get a decent picture of a ring or a pair of earrings.

I'm told I need a lightbox, which is fine and seems easy enough, but then I still need to buy different lights for it. Right now I really need to work with what I have, but I'm starting to feel like it's not possible to get a decent picture.
Everything I've read reiterates that the photograph is key. And, of course it is. No one in their right mind is going to give you money for a piece when the photograph is terrible.

So that's the hold up.
I did discover an interesting backdrop in the indoor herb garden. I figured that light would be the best of all we had in the house, and it was interesting. My best photo was from that little session. I did take some other decent ones wearing the jewelry, but I don't exactly have model hands (I have hands that get torn apart by metal and barn work, not to mention nails bitten down to the quick and cuticles that go as soon as there's no more nail) and the pictures aren't that appealing to look at.
Perhaps in the future if I tweak it a bit it can be my unique twist on jewelry photography. Getting a decent shot of a ring sitting on basil is a bit tricky, though.
And now for the photo examples. I won't just tell you how bad I am, I'll show you!
The one that turned out the best:













This is one I'd consider "decent"...minus my ugly hands.













And this is what the majority of it looked like:
Please note that these are unedited and I haven't cropped. Ideally, I'd crop in to show the detail on the ring. The last one may not look SO bad small and uncropped...but any larger and you can really see just how much I suck.