How to Photograph Jewelry Using Daylight

Learning how to photograph jewelry in natural daylight is pretty easy if you keep in mind the following tips:

• Look for soft diffused light, like a northern facing window, or any window not getting direct light, such as an east facing window in the afternoon, or a west facing window in the morning.


• If you do this outdoors, make sure you pick a spot that is not too breezy, and again, pick a spot with diffused lighting.


• Stay as close as you can to the natural source of light.  If you are indoors, do your photography next to the window where your light is coming from.


• Have with you at least one white board and one black board measuring about 15 inches by 20 inches.  White boards are handy for reflecting light to fill in dark areas of your photograph.  These boards can also be propped up behind your shooting area to cancel out any weird reflections that might occur.  For example, the aqua and red pendant in the above photo reflects the wooden siding of my apartment building in San Francisco.  Placing a white board behind the pendants, out of view, would have neutralized the striped reflection into a paler shade of the aqua glass.


• You may also consider buying some metallic card stock in either silver or gold and using them as stronger light reflectors than the white board.  The gold will give your photograph a nice reflected golden tone, and the silver will act like the white board, but a little more intense.


• Unless you are really good at making color collections on your photograph, try to avoid taking pictures during sunset, when the quality of the light changes dramatically and can alter the color balance of your photograph.

Additional tips on how to photograph your handcrafts:

Indoor Lighting techniques for photograph: Learn how to take photograph indoors using a tabletop studio by building your own DIY photo light box.

Styling your Photograph:: A discussion about styling your photograph for specific markets and presentation needs.

Examples of Depth of Field : A simplified explanation of depth of field, aperture, and f-stops and how it relates to taking great pictures.