Tuesday, August 2, 2011

THE BEADING GEM'S JOURNAL

THE BEADING GEM'S JOURNAL

Link to The Beading Gem's Journal

The WristBandit's Wearable Art Leather Cuffs

Posted: 02 Aug 2011 04:00 AM PDT

We often talk about jewelry being wearable art. Sharon aka as The WristBandit walks the talk. I'm glad she commented on my Facebook page because her hand-painted leather cuff bracelets are definitely works of art.

Every piece is one of a kind - the sort which will appeal to those who have a distinctive individual style.

As you can see from my picks, Ohio-based Sharon often draws her inspirations from native artists from around the world.

The gecko cuff above has the look of Australian aboriginal dot paintings. Others like the mask cuff below is Native American. The owl cuff is in the Inuit style.







The design below is her Golden Lily cuff which required burning the leather for the darker color and for the 3-D effect :


Don't you think her cuff bracelets are like wearing art canvases on wrists?

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Winners of the Modahaus Table Top Photo Studio Giveaway

Posted: 01 Aug 2011 03:20 PM PDT

 Making jewelry is actually the easy part. Taking pictures is quite another thing. So many of you struggle with jewelry photography just as I do. It is good that we all wish to improve.

So it is no wonder the response from the Modahaus Table Top Photo Studio Giveaway from readers was tremendous and occasionally a little desperate. But remember, no table top studio will give good results unless you know how to use your camera properly. Even a simple point and shoot has a couple of settings you must make.

I was very grateful to Lex for all the tips he has been passing along to me to share with my readers - it's fantastic having a professional mentor!  There is still lots to learn about the Modahaus. He said in an email outlining future advice, "When we do photos on white background we'll have it right in camera and no need for post process"!  Cool.

Lex took a look at this morning's post on Natural Light Jewelry Photography with the Modahaus and reassured me that bending will not harm the set-up. In fact, he said, "The polymer actually strengthens when folded."  Just don't do it at below freezing temperatures when it becomes brittle and will break. Don't worry, I have no intention of doing photo shoots outside in winter and neither would any one else!

Then he sent me his easy solution for suspending earrings on the Modahaus. Duh. I posted it up on Facebook to share. In case you missed it :


He used dark green cotton to make it show up in the above photo. Clear fishing line will be near invisible. He used a paper clip to dangle on the demo line because he didn't have earrings on hand! Well, Lex if you ever needed to buy earrings for gifts, you'll know where to look as there are tons of worthy shop owners following this blog!
    Some good news. Modahaus was so grateful for all the positive feedback on this blog, they are offering a 10% discount (code : Pearl) on any of their models for about a week. The discount period will end at midnight August 9, UK time.  Those readers who purchased the set up before this post will also be getting the 10% refund retrospectively!  So watch out for Lex's emails to you.

    I've been numbering the large number of entries as they come in. There were over 380  including the extra ones like shout-outs (thank you!).  There were so many entrants, the comments went to the second page!

    So who were the two incredibly lucky winners of this giveaway?  I  headed over to random.org to generate two numbers. The winning numbers were assigned to Lauren of A Magpie's Dream and  Maneki who is from Sweden.  Neither of them will need their make shift light tents again!

    Congratulations!  I'm off to contact the winners for their addresses.

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    Monday, August 1, 2011

    THE BEADING GEM'S JOURNAL

    THE BEADING GEM'S JOURNAL

    		Link to The Beading Gem's Journal

    Natural Light Jewelry Photography with the Modahaus Portable Studio Set Up

    Posted: 01 Aug 2011 04:35 AM PDT

    Okay, you're all going to have to indulge me here. I was so excited when I bought my Modahaus I could hardly wait to try it out.

    This first picture I took for last week's giveaway post was the most decent jewelry pix I've ever done with the least amount of effort!

    I've had more time to experiment with the portable studio set up over the weekend. The two lucky winners of the giveaway which I will randomly pick later today and other new owners might be interested to see additional pictures and tips.

    COLORED BACKGROUNDS
    If you hate taking pictures of your jewelry, and I know some of you do, then natural light photography using the colored polymer sheets is your best bet.  No fiddling with lights and camera settings. No post editing with Photoshop either apart from cropping. Why spend time photographing and editing when you'd rather be creating jewelry?

    For this photo shoot, I used my Lumix camera in automatic mode with the timer setting since I have tripods (mini and the Modopocket). If you have just a point and shoot, select the macro function and make sure your white balance is set to shady or indoors.

    The Modahaus is quick to set up but I took a bit longer than the video demonstration! It pays not to rush as you might accidentally over bend the tabs at the side. Considering how awkward it is to fold up my large pop-up light tent, the Modahaus is a breeze to set up and pack away in its sleeve.


    I also took a leaf out of Lex's book and set up my laptop on the same table as the Modahaus. Gee, my 17 inch laptop looks huge next to it!  That's how compact it is. I have a PC whereas Lex has a Mac with probably a program which streams the photos into the computer.  I just tethered the cable whenever I needed to download a batch. This method made it easy to review bigger pictures and decide if I needed to take more or not.


    Just in case, I used an old white sheet so the wooden table or the green table cloth I normally have won't affect the colors.  I also used 2 bull dog clips on the reorientated Modahaus to hang my necklace.  I spaced them apart until I got the desired suspended length. The combined weight made the set up unstable so I just propped it up from behind with a clear glass jar.

    The necklace I chose to photograph is the one which I had the most trouble with, probably because it is practically all shiny silver. You can see the dull original pictures in my shop which I have yet to replace. To liven it up, I used another tip from Lex. I sandwiched 3 sheets underneath the translucent flap of the Modahaus - opaque white at the bottom, then red, then the blue with the shiny side down - to get purple! 

    No light tunnel, necklace suspended from the top
    I rather liked the transitioning colors created by the infinity curve, so I partially suspended the necklace from the side using just one bull dog clip to try and capture that effect.


    I prefer this picture as the composition was more relaxed and the shiny silver produced some lovely reflections off the polymer sheets. The softly transitioning colors created by the infinity curve made the photo also less rigid than the one above.

    No light tunnel, necklace suspended from the side
    The decision to use a light tunnel or not will depend on the piece and your personal preferences.

    with light tunnel
    Earrings can be photographed flat but I always like to include pictures of them hanging especially if they are chandeliers.  You can hang them from props like many do or if you're masochistic, from fishing lines for the no-props look.  No fishing lines for me, I want something quick!

    In last week's post, I mentioned my idea of popping out the glass of a small picture frame for earring pictures.  It does work but don't place the glass directly on the Modahaus. The edges might still be sharp. I managed to scratch my Modahaus a little when I was experimenting with potential supports. What worked was the double alligator/crocodile clip stand which I sometimes use for bracelet making. Nothing like getting double use out of your tools and equipment!

    No light tunnel, camera on mini-tripod
    I muted the blue sheet by placing it under the translucent one. The resulting picture though had a lot of reflections :

     So I tried the white card stock-with- a-hole-for-the-lens trick which many photographers use :


    And viola, almost no reflections! The hanging earrings appear against what looks like a lovely blue sky on a sunny cloudless day!


    WHITE BACKGROUND
    It is possible to use a white background with natural light but you will need to do one more step - photo editing.  This is what the earrings look like with the opaque white sheet and the light tunnel:

    White opaque background, light tunnel, unedited
    Dull and underwhelming, isn't it?  I happened to send it to Lex who lightened the background with a photo-editor (below).  You can easily do that yourself as outlined in this past post.

    Photo-edited to lighten background
    What if you have an old camera with no macro and don't have a camera stand?  You can still do it! Lex sent me this handheld experimental picture of an amethyst necklace. He deliberately used an old camera, a Canon Compact 7 to help him "get into the zone" i.e. understand the difficulties we non-professionals face.  As the camera has no macro, he did a slight zoom in to frame the necklace.

    White opaque background, no light tunnel
    He says to avoid direct sunlight (bright rays) but one way to soften the harsh cast of such light is by photographing with net or voile curtains drawn across the window. You can see the gentle striations of the background due to the curtains which add visual interest to the picture.

    See how the back earring of my earrings pictures is softly out of focus ?  I kind of like that artistic look. But professional photographers like Lex tend to avoid such shallow depth of field/focus pictures. They try and get the whole piece into focus. They either use focus stacking techniques (ugh - we're not going there) or simply by decreasing the aperture. (This is not possible for most point and shoot cameras)

    In automatic mode, my camera has a very large aperture (f 3.3 - 4.0) for macro shots which gives me sharp foregrounds and out of focus backgrounds. But for Lex's amethyst necklace, he used a smaller aperture of f 6.3 so the whole necklace is seen clearly. If you have a digital SLR or something like my Lumix, you can do this too.

    Thanks, Lex for the tips and lessons! More?

    Before You Go :
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    Some Pretty Earrings to Wear!

    Posted: 31 Jul 2011 03:00 PM PDT

    Many of the beaders who come to our workshop do so because they want to make earrings. The reason is, there is no such thing as too many earrings!  Brenda chose some pretty millefiore discs for hers.  She also carefully chose seed beads to coordinate with the bigger beads.  This pair should go with many outfits!



    The beads Carrie chose for both her earrings below also came from Debbie's (my co-instructor and friend) collection. The wire swirls at the bottom of the first pair can either be made by hand and then hammered or you can purchase them that way.  For a tutorial, check yesterday's post. The pink pair consist of small lamp work beads.




    Beader Designs # : 664-665

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