Wednesday, February 8, 2012

YOJ 2012 -Week 6 Auction piece for animal rescue work


Before I talk about this piece, I must scream, "Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh!!! I'm having the hardest time photographing this piece!". It looks so sweet, divine, in person. The Rose Quartz, and the shiny silver give it a very peaceful, divine feeling. But the photographs I have been taking suck royally! This is about the best I could do so far.

I am donating this piece to a really sweet animal rescue worker who will auction this piece to raise funds for animal rescue work. I really want her to be able to raise enough funds...but for that, the picture should do justice to the piece. However, the picture sucks. I don't know how to bring out what it really looks like. And that is so important for an online auction.

The pendant is a Rose Quartz heart, to signify the big loving hearts that animal rescue workers have...all those who work to save an animal from gas chambers, all those who try to raise funds, or will participate in this auction, so that the money could be used to save animals. This piece is in your honor. The metal used is AG silver wire. And I have made the chain using dyed fresh water pearls, and sterling silver wire. The clasp is handmade as well.

5 comments:

Nicole Hanna said...

What a beautiful necklace! I love the pearls and the heart quartz. I think it's a great auction piece. Where are your lights positioned? It looks, based on glare, that you might have lights (or on-camera flash?) positioned straight on or close to straight on, so if that's the case, I would move the lights one to either side of the pendant. Direct light is usually not the best thing for shiny surfaces. If it's not enough light than add a third pointing down on top of the piece, but three lights should definitely be sufficient. I also wasn't sure it was silver until I read the description, because it looks too warm... like gold. Which can be adjusted in post-processing, but using daylight bulbs will help reduce the yellow glow that some basic bulbs will produce. But mostly, if you used a lighter background, lighting wouldn't be as much of an issue. When you have a black background, your camera compensates and provides more light, even if your piece doesn't require it, so in the end, the centerpiece looks washed out or brighter than it needs to be. I'm not sure what kind of camera you use or if you are able to adjust your settings manually or not, but if you can change it to tungsten or daylight (assuming you are using daylight bulbs) then this will help even out the coloring and glare. I love your trinket box photos... that background is perfect for low light. All black and all white backgrounds require a certain finesse with lighting that I just seem to lack. lol. You could also place it on a piece of clear glass that is raised off a black surface. For instance, lay a black cloth down, nice and straight with no wrinkles, then set up a small clear glass "table" so the glass is about 4-8 inches off the black fabric. Lay your pieces on the glass, shoot from above, and you get a nice reflection on the glass, but with a low aperture (usually f8-f11) the background is blurred, so it looks like a nice smooth solid black while still getting the reflection on the glass. That might work too.... if it made sense. lol. Sometimes, when it's late at night, I'm not sure how much sense I make! It's a beautiful piece! Hope this helps some.

Swati said...

Thanks Nicole! I actually used the same settings as in the trinket box, but the background was different. With a lighter background this was looking BLEH! So people suggested I use black velvet. It looked better than the other crappier ones. Anyway, I adjusted the saturation on the old picture...how does the silver look now? How does the picture look? Thanks again!! :-))

Shay Stone said...

What a beauty Swati! I'm wondering if you might include a link to the auction supporting the animals?

And thanks to Nicole for the photo advice - I'm sure it will help lots of us!

Big Hugs to your awesome creative self!

Swati said...

Thanks Shay! :-)) Yes, I'll include a link as soon as she sets up the auction. Nicole also has a post on her blog on photographing jewelry...very informative!

Nicole Hanna said...

Yep the silver looks much more natural now. No gold tone this time around. I like it.

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