Styling Jewellery Images

Styling for jewellery images can be tricky. Because your jewellery is small, the space that you photograph them in also needs to be small. Adding too much clutter in the form of props and elaborate sets may actually draw the eye away from your pieces.

So, this means that your styling needs to be minimal but, this doesn't mean that your jewellery images need to be boring! The trick is to add style to your images through the use of lighting, textures and composition. We’ll explore each of these elements more in this blog.

Texture

When photographing jewellery you will need to come in very close, so subtle details like texture become more prominent. Think about how you can use this to your advantage and use textured surfaces and backdrops to add style to your images. Textures can be anything from fabrics such as satin, velvet or linen. To natural materials such as sand, wood, stone or even paper. The beauty of working with texture is that it tends to work well with jewellery without overpowering the products.

Lighting + shadows

Lighting can be your best friend when it comes to jewellery photography. If your jewellery has interesting shapes, using hard light which will create sharp hard shadows (such as those in the image below) can accentuate those shapes and highlight the form of the earring as a feature.

For brands with more delicate or elegant jewellery, casting shadows or using dappled light can create a moody, sultry vibe in your images.

Props + Composition

Again, here we need to be mindful of stealing the show. Earrings by nature are small, so any object that is significantly bigger than your earring is going to draw the eye. Therefore, you need to work with fairly small props, or if a prop is large, you will just show a small portion of it (and have the bulk of the prop outside of the frame).

Camera angles and displays

The most common format for jewellery is flat lay. While flat lays definitely have their place, it can be nice to experiment with other camera angles. To do this you will need to find a way of displaying your jewellery from front on. This may be  through hanging your jewellery on objects or using a physical structure such as a set of display props.

OK, so there you have it. I hope this blog has been helpful and gave you some insight into how to style your jewellery images. As always, if you create anything awesome please share your pics in the Facebook Group Photography for Makers - I’d love to see your work!