Amateur Jewelry Photography & Duke City Fix

Duke City Fix is a ning community that's got "the inside line on Albuquerque." (Did you know the late Bo Diddley lived just south of here for years? I just watched the Bo Diddley video Adelita posted 4 times in a row! Hey Bo Diddley!) In fact, I was all set to link there in a upcoming blog post but Duke Citizen Spring Griffin done beat me to it and blogged me first! Thank you Spring. I am just so thrilled she complimented me on my photos because it has taken me a long time to figure out how to get something decent (when I first opened my Etsy shop I used a scanner. For jewelry. Ew!).

Why, just yesterday afternoon I was yanking the gamma. Hey! Don't get ahead of yourself. I mean adjusting the midtones...strongly...in my photos. Along with the highlights. I thought it would be fun (as opposed to "funny" cause it's actually quite sad, LOL) to show a before and after of what I was working with today.

But first...ahem. My shooting method. [sound of knuckles cracking]

1. Rush home before sun goes down.
2. Find camera.
3. Locate empty diskette.
4. Turn around and start running across the room with camera still plugged in to charger.
5. Shoo boyz from game cube (they yell at me for walking back and forth with camera).
6. Put pretty paper on tray table. On top of other pretty paper from last time. Scoot tray table closer to sliding glass door. Hope stack of pretty paper doesn't slide onto floor.
6. Toss jewelry onto paper.
7. Turn on camera, autofocus off.
8. Squat bent over in non-yoga position, squinting over bifocals into viewfinder. Turn focus thingy until jewelry gets all squiggly. Pray that means it's in focus.
9. For hanging jewelry shot, find dirty old bottle, drape jewelry on it, put illustrious boy Buddha statue behind pretty paper to prop up paper backdrop.
10. Do this over and over until I'm sweaty.
11. Curse the boyz for not turning on the air.
12. Run back to computer and pop in the diskette.

And that's my method. [sound of beatniks snapping fingers]

After that it's top secret editing time. Top secret, because I couldn't tell you what I do or why, exactly. Basically I lighten the gamma, adjust the highlights higher, tweak the shadows, and occasionally tip the colors (usually away from blue...we have big skies around here and they throw a color cast, even into my living room). Sometimes I have to do so much gamma yanking, I have to resaturate the photos a bit, but only just a bit or my A gemstones turn into AAA gemstones, LOL!

Ok here's the photos. I actually work with them 2-3 times as big as they are here.

Healing Heart Necklace

Himalayan coral earrings and estate sale coral, restrung