Silver Jewelry

Our friend Ellen is a silversmith. We are huge fans of her work; my wife has many pieces. I offered to photograph some of the inventory so Ellen would have some images ready to go for promotional purposes.


Ellen and her husband Al had tried to do this themselves and were not happy with the results. Silver is a tough thing to photograph. The reflections are hard to control and I had to fiddle about to find a technique that would work. These earrings were the most challenging of all the pieces owing to the fact that they are slightly curved. It was hard to capture the right level of sheen with no seriously under or over exposed areas. Another challenge is to capture an image that does not feature reflections of the light source or the photographer.


For this photo I used 2 Elinchrom BX500 strobes at lowest power with softboxes bouncing off a white ceiling. Canon 5DII with Canon 24-105 lens 105mm. F11 at 1/60 sec. ISO 400; hand held.