So I came home Sunday afternoon from my jeweler with my first piece, and needed to photograph it. She had offered me the number of her jewelry photographer, but I told her I was going to try to do it myself first.

Sunday had been a long day and I was tired when I got back home, but I was anxious and excited to get right to business, so I spent the last few remaining hours of daylight with my model, setting it on different fabrics, lighting, positions, etc, and got some ok pictures, but not great, and resolved to get right back on it Monday morning.

I have a little Nikon digital camera I got at Best Buy for $150. It’s not high-end, but it’s not the lowest end either, and has some good features, including many pre-sets for taking pictures in different lighting and different environments, but you have to read the manual, and I’ve never been much of a manual reader.

After about 6 hours into my shoot and growing frustration of positioning good shots that weren’t coming out well, I decided to read the manual.

The section I needed took about 15 minutes to go through. I found my best setting for jewelry was the “museum setting”, with no flash. The museum setting produced the most balanced detail. I had been taking pictures indoors using the “automatic focus”, which included the flash, and what was happening was that  every time the flash went off, it would reflect off of the silver on the piece, throw off all kinds of new light, and I’d lose all the detail.

So, step one – turn on the “museum” setting, and turn off the flash. The pictures started getting better and I worked another hour or so, but was still puzzled at the abundance of fuzzy pictures.

Then I realized, since the shot I wanted was so small and detailed, that the slightest movement of the camera would disturb the shot. Hey! Maybe that’s why they invented tripods!

I didn’t have a tripod, so I improvised by putting a plastic CD-stack holder on a stack of books, then positioning the camera upside down and using the auto-timer (which gives you 10-seconds to get out of the way from the time you push the button). In those 10 seconds, I was able to let go of the camera, so it would lay absolutely still on top of the CD holder, and take the picture on its own.

Voila! Perfection!

Armed with my new technique I spent the next few hours running through the house with my jewelry in a creative frenzy, trying it on every surface and in every setting imaginable.

I’m really happy with how the pictures came out:)