The art of photography.

I've heard a lot of artists in the Etsy forums say that they love to design and create their pieces, and they adore their shops and really enjoy selling online, but they hate photographing their items. I completely agree. I've struggled a lot with my photography. I love creating jewelry, I'm always pondering new designs, pairing beads together in my mind and thinking up names for my future creations. I want all of my pieces to find loving homes, and I know as an online seller and shopper that good photographs are the most important tool when selling over the internet.

Online shopping has its advantages. You can do it in your own time, pop in and out between work or chores, view a wider selection of items than there tends to be in any one regular store, and easily compare similar pieces. But the biggest drawback is that you can't pick up, turn over and feel the object. It can be hard to get a sense of size, true colour, or quality. This is where photos become crucial.

Unfortunately, most people who spend their time sewing, potting, sculpting, painting, making jewelry, etc, aren't spending their time learning to become world class photographers, and we can have a very hard time creating photos that are as incredible as our handcrafted items.

As with all aspects of my business, I want my photographs to be the very best they can be. I want them to have the "lust factor," as my mother calls it. That almost indescribable quality that compels you to click on an item photo no matter what it's a photo of.

The first thing I tried was a homemade light box. I found a tutorial online that described how to cut the top and sides from a cardboard box, cover the spaces with thin paper and aim lights into the box to illuminate the object. Those photos came out quite dim and a bit grainy looking, like so:


I quickly realized that though some people seem to have success with it, this method wasn't working for me. It was suggested to me that one of my items might photograph better on a dark background, so I laid out black paper on the cold stove top, turned on the hood range light, set the camera to flash and gave it a try. It seemed to be an improvement, so I spend a lot of time trying to perfect the technique, using PhotoShop to lighten the pictures where necessary. This is what that looked like:


Even though this seemed to be an improvement on the light box, the photos had an almost surreal quality to them. The black background was a bit stark and didn't help to give any depth or proportion to the items. I had about 30 items in my shop at that time, all photographed this way. They certainly didn't inspire "lust" in me, so how could they do so to my larger audience?

It was at this point that I started to understand why there is such a wide spread opinion that indirect nature light is the best method for photographing one's products. I decided that it was time to give the method a try. After experimenting with several backgrounds, including white and coloured paper, my sister, Natashia, tried an item on a weathered wooden bench that our aunt had given us as a housewarming present. The pale gray wood provided an interesting visual and some perspective to the pieces. Combined with the indirect natural light (the bench is in the shade of the garage) it created photographs that make it look like you can reach out and pick up the items.


Very pleased with this presentation, I set about rephotographing my entire shop. It took a few weeks, but I finally got all of my items changed over and was able to add more (I'm up to 79). I did need something a bit different for the first photograph of my earrings, and that was quickly remedied with a small house plant that I take outside with me.



I love the way that the natural backgrounds in natural light convey such a friendly, summery feel to my whole shop. And they do the most justice to the jewelry that I work so hard on. Now I just have to worry about what I'll do come winter..... ;)

My Journey With Jewelry

Ever since I was a little girl I've loved to draw, paint and create. I was a girly-girl, so jewelry was right up there on my list of favourite things. For birthdays and Christmas, my parents would get my sisters and me crafting kits that we just adored. One of my favourites was a "make your own clay beads" kit, which we had a ball turning into gaudy necklaces and bracelets that we thought were just beautiful.

A few years after that, my Girl Guide troop was taking apart old VCRs to learn what they look like inside and I found a spool of copper wire that the Guide leader let me take home. I'm sure that it just looked like trash to her, but I thought it was beautiful. I twisted several strands together and made bracelets and rings out of it. I wasn't very good at tucking the sharp ends in, though, so no one was terribly interested in wearing my creations.

Later, I discovered more tasteful jewelry, falling in love with a tiny beading store in the mall. I had a horrible time choosing what to get, there were bins and bins of shiny, colourful beads, charms and clasps. I finally settled on glass beads, leather cording and animal charms, and made necklaces for me and both my sisters.

Not long ago, my younger sister was at Micheal's and found crafting kits for making your own freshwater pearl necklaces and bracelets. She bought a kit for us both on the condition that I string hers for her. That was how I learned about tiger tail wire and crimping, a technique that I'm quite fond of.

When I first read about Etsy and started setting up shop there last January, I bought a bunch of different beads online. As it turned out, I had no concept of size and 4mm beads will absolutely not thread onto 1.5mm leather cording. Leather cording had been my main focus, but since I suddenly found myself the owner of many tiny beads I had to reevaluate. Enter the tiger tail.

Not long after that, I discovered the art of wire wrapping through online video tutorials. It took quite a bit of practice, but it's now my absolute favourite technique.

Collecting appropriate supplies and findings took me a lot longer than I thought it would, so I wasn't able to actually start listing on Etsy until February 20th. I had my first few sales within the first week, bought by some darling women I know from a message board that I moderate. It wasn't long after that that I had my first sale to a stranger, which was a fabulous feeling. :)

Since then, my Etsy sales have been up and down, with the biggest "high" coming only yesterday when I sold 3 things in one day for the first time ever! I have my fingers crossed that this is the start of more consistent sales.

So that's sort of the history of my jewelry career up until now in a nutshell. (A nice big nut shell. ;)