Why learning to take great pictures of your jewelry may make you a better artist.

It’s been about eight months since I opened my Etsy shop now. And I have to say, there is an awful lot that I was not prepared for – but I’m getting there! One of the most intimidating aspects, at least for me, was taking good quality photos of my jewelry. And I am learning something new every day! I have made it a habit to go through listings that are up for renewal, because chances are, I will have learned something that will improve the chances of the particular piece of jewelry to be sold. One of those is, of course, you guessed it: photography!

I am not even strictly speaking of the photography part itself, but how you perceive the pieces you have created. The picture taking is as much part of the creative process for me as sitting down and making the actual piece. Why? For one I have learned – the hard way, believe me, that no matter how much care and attention you put into your work, mistakes do happen. And there is nothing like a really tightly cropped close-up shot to smack you in the face with that!

Do you see what I see? If you don’t, that proves my hypothesis that few people look at your work with the same critical eye as you do. Because all I could see was the half way open jump ring front and center that had eluded me the entire time I polished and photographed this bracelet! So much so that I didn’t even bother cropping or even editing the image further. I knew this had to be remedied and I don’t do retouching. So back I went, fixed the jump ring, even found a couple more that were not up to snuff and re-photographed the whole shabang.

Much better!

And since I don’t mind being ~~laughed at~~ here is some of the early pictures I took, and I believe, even put with my listings…

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

and last but not least…

Does kinda hurt your eyes, am I right?

To help you out with your own photography dilemmas I dug around on the interwebz and found some useful sites to explore. The first is another blog that did us all the favor and rounded up some great tips for 10 Etsy sellers! And here is a site that offers this table top studio, if you are looking for equipment. And another website that offers some useful tips for lighting and props. I hope this helps a little! I will make this a regular feature, so I hope you take some time to sign up and be sure not to miss my other posts on this subject! And, of course I would love to hear from you!