The self-portrait on the right sidebar of this website uses a seppia filter, which gives an old-style black and white look to your photography, the way early film photography used to look like in the (not so) distant past.
I found the same filter to work wonderfully for a jewelry shoot done for a client last week. I had to come up with a way to use the model’s beauty to pop out the delicate earrings, while avoiding her beauty overshadowing them. The seppia color scheme created a warm black and white palette: it captured the warmth of the face, but brought out the diamond glitter into prominence. Here’s an example:
A photographer learns something new each shoot. This shoot taught me the value of macro lenses for jewelry, lenses with a close-up focal ability. I used a Canon 100mm macro over a dark backdrop (the same portable backdrop I carry with me to the homes of my Roseville Photographer clientele).
Now look at this gorgeous ring. See what a macro lens can do? Perfect focus; details popping out clearly; dark backdrop makes it simple to darken the background on Lightroom, bringing the gold and precious stones into prominence and pleasing the client.
(Oh, and by the way: by my calculations, it’ll take a hundred jewelry shoots to afford this ring. Budding photographers, beware!)
