Jewelry photography backgrounds

[laura]

What are your favorite backgrounds for jewelry photography?

I always struggle with these.. So far my faves are the piece of weathered wood, a stone-like cutting board (looks/feels/weights like stone - white with some tiny dots) and a piece of milky plexiglass for neutral/product shots.
Photo album pages look interesting, but I have mixed feelings about the "pixels" (raster) showing in macro shots..

[Tela]

This is a real good question.

It's a real gift to be able to artfully frame a piece of jewelry with props and background, and not have them steal the show. Lisa Barth is the Master at it. I have tried and found that I am terrible at it and it doesn't suit me, my taste, nor my jewelry style. I prefer paper backgrounds. I like textured neutral papers. They add small scale texture and don't detract from the jewelry. That's just my opinion, though. As for the plexiglass, I really like it. I don't think it fits for everything, though. Lately, I have been playing with light to add some ambiance to the picture, rather than props or a physical background. Personally, I really like this- but it is time consuming.

[Tela]

Thought I would show you some of the pictures that I didn't like. I played with a lot of different things and never found the one thing that I really like, however the stacked, black rocks seemed to work with a few things. In general, though, I find props or visually heavy backgrounds are a distraction from the jewelry.



This photo with manzanita wood was improved with a light filter in PS.



I glued these rocks together to create height and they both had a divot that lined up together.



I worked with this idea for a long time and gave up on it.



The rocks again, I like the look, but it actually detracts from the piece, IMHO.



My favorite thing at the moment is to use light to frame the piece. The light was done in Photoshop.

[wildivy]

I usually try to keep the background totally plain. I also find that a prop or busy background detracts from the jewelry--although there are folks out there that do it well and it doesn't detract.

I use a piece of back painted glass in neutral gray. and a piece of poster board painted with the same paint. After I settled on using gray I did find it is hard keep "neutral" so getting things color corrected involve some adjustment in Photoshop. I still have a lot to learn to get things to look like I want them to and I can't blame my equipment. I'm fortunate to have a nice Nikon camera and a light tent.

Tela, your pictures always look wonderful. I wish mine were half as good!

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[Tela]

Hi Ivy!
Beautiful picture and beautiful piece I like that neutral background. Love simplicity. Another benefit to doing great, non-fussy pictures is that it doesn't take as long to shoot.

[christine]

Welcome Ivy! Beautiful piece and your photography looks good too!
I agree with Tela in using neutral backgrounds. Years ago, I studied black and white photography and felt pretty adept. I was totally taken aback by how difficult it is to shoot jewelry. Tela was such a help in studying her photos , backgrounds and giving suggestions. Finally, I am improving with a light tent and a shaded paper background. I don't have a lot of energy to be up shooting so don't even try props anymore. Oops, take that back, I did try it with the horizontal earrings and quickly gave up!