Photographing Jewelry in Santa Barbara

Peter Hornby • February 17, 2009

Photographing jewelry is notoriously difficult.  The pieces are small, awkward and often very reflective.  If you want an image that can be used on the web, or on a postcard mailer, or in a festival advertisement - all of which Lorraine and I need and want - there are techniques you have to learn, and, not surprisingly, equipment you have to buy.

I'd been photographing Lorraine's jewely for a while and I'd reached a point where the results were mostly OK.  Not great, but OK.  I'd made a few images that I liked a lot, but mostly the results were uninspiring, and I didn't really know why.

And then Lorraine found a reference to a workshop on Photographing Jewelry.  Better, it was in Santa Barbara, three hours or so up the coast from our home in Laguna Beach.  So we signed up.  Or, rather, she signed me up.  I spent Saturday and Sunday in class while she had a pleasant couple of days of mooching around one of the most beautiful towns on the southern California coast.

Actually, the plan worked perfectly, because the class was just what I was looking for, and, just as important, a weekend at leisure was exactly what Lorraine needed!

So, Saturday morning at 9am, I pitched up at the Brooks Institute [Lorraine’s note: sadly now closed], camera and tripod in hand and ready for action.  The Brooks Institute specialises in teaching photography, and the instructor was the Director of the Professional Photography program, Scott Miles.  Also on hand were Stephen and Suzanne Dougherty, who run TableTopStudio, a small company which sells equipment to help product phorographers to improve their work.  I was aware of the company - in fact I'd bought some of their products, and their EZCube light tent was the major factor in improving my work to the point where I could call it "OK".

The class was a perfect balance of lecture, lab work and show-and-tell.  Scott spent Saturday morning giving us the basics, most of which I was fairly comfortable with, and then we moved downstairs to their photo lab, nicknamed "The Cove", where we found a room full of EZCubes in various sizes, lights, stands, booms, and we started in on trying to photograph the pieces we'd brought with us.  This where the class really excelled.  Scott, Suzanne, Stephen and assistant Carly were always on hand to talk us through techniques and give us suggestions for setting up, mounting or lighting a tricky piece.

We were back in the lab on Sunday morning, putting our skills to work, and after lunch, we met up in the lecture room to share the images we'd made.  And there was some really good work.  Everyone had taken to heart the material Scott had covered with us on Saturday and which he and the others had reinforced in the lab.  We were all amazed at how well everyone had done.

So now, to work!