What Three Days and a Camera Will Get You

I knew I needed to figure out how to photograph my jewelry well enough to put it up on etsy.  But I had been putting it off, and putting it off, and putting it off.  Because I had made some previous attempts - and let's just say they weren't pretty.  At all.  So bad, in fact, that I no longer have photographic proof of them.  And then I tried a few that were slightly more successful - but a couple of artist/designer friends were emphatically negative on the brick I was using as a support:

One tactfully said "it just catches the eye in a not-so-good way."  The other said "it kind of looks like congealed snot."  Huh.  Not really what I was going for.  So back to the drawing board.  The next suggestion I got was wood.  Since I was in singleminded pursuit of decent photographs (not even fabulous, just decent), I gathered up every movable wooden object I could find.  Cigar boxes.  Jewelry boxes.  Wooden bowls.  Finally, success!  Turns out my new backdrop is actually my old jewelry box.  The one that I haven't used in years, but really like because it's cool looking.  And in this case, cool looking was all I needed.  So. . .  here are some of the pics.

Fairly successful, right?  (And if you're thinking no, please contact me privately and quickly, so I can spend another 3 days re-doing these.)  And yes, it really did take 3 days to figure all of this out.  Clearly I'm severely lacking in photographic talent and initiative.  But, now I kind of have a system figured out, so I'm feeling dedicated to the online idea.  Because it looks like this whole e-commerce fad may be here to stay.  So, in case you didn't notice the big new etsy app on the side of this blog - it's official, I'm back on etsy!  And that's what three days and a camera will get you.