Are you battling the Etsy photography beast?

Let me show you how I have tweaked my jewelry photography in recent months to a level I can finally live with – sort of. I will never be 100% happy, but I am learning to come to terms with that and I am determined to not let my incessant self-criticism lay boulders in my way anymore!

First of all, I want to let you know right off the bat that you CAN get pretty impressive images with a simple point and shoot camera, mine happens to be a Nikon CoolPix S6000.

The “bells” and “whistles” you do need, however, are a killer macro setting (the little tulip symbol) and the capability to adjust the light/brightness level and a built in timer. Aside from that it is essential to have some sort of tripod or the timer won’t do you any good:) Those are thankfully dirt cheap.

Alrighty then, lets get to the good stuff!

Here is just your run of the mill image of some pretty sparkly beads:

Boring! This is the kind of image most people will take starting out. Let’s see what we can do with that.

Getting warmer! I didn’t move the beads at all! But I lowered my camera (that is another reason for using that tripod!) just about to the level of the beads. Not only does that make the perspective a little more interesting, but now we can appreciate the pretty reflection of the marble tile. I bought a fairly plain shiny marble tile to get away from the nothing but white backgrounds and love how the faint marbling add just a hint more interest.

And here is a similar image after tweaking it with my run-of-the-mill picture editing software. See? You CAN make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear!

Much better! Don’t you think?

And now I will show you the fancy studio, err, corner of my dining room it was shot in – please don’t laugh ~~out loud!~~

I know, right? The “light box” is a home made concoction, plastered together from foam core poster board. It is super cheap and I didn’t have anything to lose! Turns out it works really well! And no, I am not using a flash – natural indirect sunlight has worked best for me!

So that is it for today’s little jewelry photography corner!

Have you found interesting and cheap solutions for your photography? I am always looking for ways to improve!