You don’t need a fancy camera.
One thing about online retail stores is providing beautiful, if not outstanding shots of your products. For me, this is always a challenge. Apparently, I’m not the only one with this dilemma. A fellow member of DTeam (one of the teams in etsy) blogged about it today. Here is an excerpt of her entry:
1. Learn what the words in italics mean and how you can use them to get closer to a better photo.
2. Say NO to flash! Especially around shiny jewelry.
3. Cloudy days may not be good for a trip to the beach, but they’re great for outside photo shoots.
4. A simple background will make your stuff POP!
5. Macro, macro, macro! Find that tiny flower button and use it when you want a close-up.
6. Better no props, than the wrong props.
7. I know, it’s been said before – get a tripod or make your own (on my Santa list).
8. If you really don’t feel like taking pictures, then don’t – they’ll just end up crappy.
9. Don’t spend your money on the most expensive camera you can find, you won’t know what to do with it.
10. Consider taking a photography course (it’s on my to do list too).
11. If your camera really is possessed by an evil genie, try bartering some of your stuff to photography students in exchange for their services: they need a portfolio, you need good pictures.
12. If you have a day job or don’t have the time to take your photos in daylight, you can make your own light box or light tent . Of course, you could also buy one, but where’s the fun in that?
I agree with everything she said.
When it’s time for a photoshoot (for purposes of this blog, it exclusively means “taking photos of finished products/items ready to be posted”), make sure that all my materials are ready: the background, lighting, the environment, and most especially, my camera.
Unless the earring or necklace is made up of rock crystal, clear crystals, or any transparent and clear gemstone, I will use a black background.
However, more often than not, I find it too much of a contrast, so I will shift to placing them on top of my mother of pearl boxes. To add dimension, I will add a few more boxes in the background.
For the lighting, I’ve experimented with bright lights, mood lights, and natural light. The best lighting for me is natural light with a bit of mood light (soft yellow). This, however, creates shadows. When this happens, I just use the zoom of my camera.
The environment sometimes has an effect on the lighting. This is the time I move around, everywhere and anywhere I could find a nice space for the shoot.
Last and not least, I always make sure my camera is fully charged and that the memory card is empty. I always take a gazillion (ok, that’s an exaggeration) of shots. You can edit later on.
Customized
In one occasion, I made this pair of earrings:
(White turquoise drops, midnight black Austrian crystals, wrapped in sterling silver wire)
Separately, I also made this pendant:
(White turquoise drops wrapped in 10k solid gold wire)
Upon seeing these two, a client wanted the design of the earrings but with solid gold wire instead of sterling silver, so that it would match the pendant.
This pair is a bit heavy (well, for me, that is) so instead of the lever back, I suggested that we use earring posts. This is how it came out:
(with 10k solid gold wire and 14k solid gold ear posts)
And this is how it was packaged:
(wrapped in golden bronze organza ribbon in my signature mother of pearl jewelry box)
Recently, there was another request for a customized item.
I posted this on etsy. It is made with golden citrine Austrian crystals wrapped in stainless steel wire.
The request was to use sterling silver instead of stainless steel.
Thus:
It’s always a delight whenever I get requests to customize a design because its sort of a challenge specially when the client is very specific with what she/he wants.
Gold prices are up!!!!!?!!!!
I went to my supplier today to buy my gold and silver wire. You see, whenever I go on buying sprees for my jewelry, I prepare a list of what to buy and only bring enough money. Sometimes to the exact centavo. I asked for the usual and almost had a heart attack when she rang up the bill!!!!
She explained that gold prices have increased internationally, and if gold goes up, so does silver.
Yikes! I should have bought more during my last purchase, which was about two weeks ago!!!
I really panicked because there were other things I still needed to buy……
Things to do this weekend
1. Go to my supplier. I’ve to get the stones for a wedding. It’s a huge order so I think I’ll need two trips for this, plus I ran out of solid gold wire and earring posts.
2. Visit my sister. She’s going to borrow a few pieces for a premiere night. I’m thinking of lending her the following:
3. Make more of these:
4. Bond with the hubby and little one (Sunday is the househelp’s day off)
5. Thank God for blessing me with so many beautiful things!
Click here for more info on the pieces mentioned in this post 🙂
Happy Weekend everyone!
Lockets
I panic!
Packages of beautiful stones arrived in the mail over the last two weeks and I instantly got excited!
As you can see I have agate, lots of chalcedony, carnelian, rock crystal, jasper, garnet, lucite and lots lots more. This was my first purchase abroad (meaning: outside the Philippines). The investment was more than what I usually spend on stones here, but the quality of these are way much better.
I can’t wait to execute the designs that are already crowding my head!
Here are some of what I made:
Everything is now available at my etsy shop.
Watches
I don’t exactly recall how I started making watch bracelets. I think I walked into my supplier’s store and saw a gazillion of watch heads. My mind started spinning from all the ideas. They were an instant hit and eventually got sold out, also because became popular as part of wedding packages I also offered in multiply.
What got me started
It was March 2008. The place where I work prepared a couple of month-long programs to celebrate Women’s Month. One program I attended was an accessory-making seminar. It was just a mere hour long activity which cost each participant Php 1,000 (USD 22) each for the registration and materials. The trainers taught us to make simple stuff like a set of pearl necklace, bracelet and earrings. Then as the saying goes, the rest is history.
Here are a few of my early projects:
Welcome to my blog!
This is another addition to my creative (I hope) attempt to express myself.
Hi! I’m Joanne, wife, mother, professional, and designer of the ClassicSparklers line of jewelry and accessories.
I have another blog which focuses more with my musings of work and motherhood. Occasionally i’d mention a thing or two about my craft but I felt that the things I make need a spotlight of their own, thus, this blog.
In here you will find the process of how each project is made, my thoughts, my emotions, how I came up with the designs, and the like.
I am looking forward to this endeavor, and I hope that you, too, will enjoy each post.
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