Taking photos can be one of the most daunting parts of selling your jewelry online especially if you’re not sure how to take photos of jewelry to display the important details. Ensuring that you’re correctly capturing the details of your handmade jewelry can take hours if you’re not properly trained.
While I am no master, I have several friends who are trained photographers. My friend Liz Banman not only took all the photography for my website, but she also gave me these five helpful tips how to take jewelry photos. Use them to capture your own professional jewelry photos.
1: Proper Positioning
To ensure the most successful photo possible, make sure you’re displaying your jewelry in a way that is as natural as possible. This means that you won’t want to have earrings laying flat; figure out a way to hang them or position the ear hooks so they look nice.
The same rule applies with necklaces and bracelets. Make sure beads are facing the same way, that you have no parts hanging in strange ways, and that all fronts are facing forward.
2: Backgrounds
Selecting a neutral color for the best results. So if possible, find a single color that appropriately contrasts your jewelry design. Personally, I opt for black or white (sometimes cream) as my defaults. They tend to show off my jewelry details the best.
If you are going for a specific look or feel for your jewelry brand or store, you may decide that a pattern is best. Just keep in mind that patterns and colors could take away from the jewelry. Adding a color could also mess up the white balance of an image so the colors of the jewelry might not look true to the actual product. Make sure you strike a good balance.
Another pro photography tip from Liz: keep in mind that whatever you’re photographing near could cast a color on your images. So if you are photographing next to a red wall it’s likely that all the images would have a red cast to them.
3: Close up Shots
Sometimes you want to go in tight to your jewelry. If you do this, a more professional camera would be the best tool for the job. Keep in mind that you will want to focus on the closest part of the jewelry (so the front bead, the front of a ring or bracelet, if you are really close to a ring you want the front prongs to be in focus) or else the whole image is going to look out of focus, even if it is in focus.
4: Consistency is Key
One great general tip Liz shared was that if you want your photos to be consistent so make sure that you keep track of how you take the photos. This information can include the time of day, if you use a certain lamp, what wattage of light bulb, and other specific details. This will help you remember what to mimic the next time you sit down to take photos of your jewelry.
5: Have Fun
The final tip Liz shared was to have fun with your jewelry photos. Don’t be afraid to take a ton of pictures and play with the different setups. That’s the beauty of digital; you can always pare down.
What other tips for taking photos do you have? Share them below in the comments!