Photography Exhibition, Steve Rostron, Jewelry, f8 Pro Photo

Jewellery is tricky stuff to photograph and, especially when it's high-end genuine gear like this stuff, you have to work at it to get the colour, brilliance and texture just right.
The nice thing about Jewellery is there's a certain amount of prestige that one gets handling 1/2 million quids worth of Diamonds, Rubies and Emeralds not to mention the Gold and, a lot of self satisfaction is gleaned from producing quality images that the product deserves. Hours of fiddling about with plasticine, paper clips, tweezers and all the usual paraphernalia of a photographic studio pays off by enhancing one's portfolio and bank account simultaneously.
The brief was to produce a series of images, 12 in all, for full page monthly magazine ads. Advertising campaign would be the wrong phrase here. The people that can afford this stuff don't buy on impulse from a magazine ad. They may buy on impulse walking down Bond St. or Second Ave. but not by waving an advert asking "Do you have this piece in stock but with Emeralds not Rubies" it simply isn't the done thing.
I thought about a black background so the pieces jump right off the page and around one's Neck so I got a sheet of black Pespex which gives this really neat, subtle reflection, like a black reflection but without the double image you get with glass. Then I thought about Rocks, being stones also the texture compliments the product. So there am I, painting hand picked rocks with black satin car spray (the things we must do to earn a crust) then, I play around with light.
I found that a hard point source spotlight didn't pick up enough facets of these many jewelled, many faceted pieces so I used a single 40x 30in.(100x75cm.) fish fryer flashhead, highlighting many facets, along with strategically placed reflectors.
But the real knack to this stuff is getting light to come through the gems showing off their colour and brilliance and this takes time. Tiny pieces of aluminium foil or white paper where cut and inserted behind the larger stones, where possible within the mounting itself, to reflect light back out. The Pearls are a different problem. The roundness or not, as the case may be, is a crucial aspect of Pearls and side lighting helped but translucency is a bugger to catch on film.
All originals shot on 5x4 Ektachrome.
Text and Photographs copyright Steve Rostron 2007.