Fogging up jewelry for photography

Hi Tom -
Regarding your post…

" Hi Dolores, When you find a photographer,if there is a problem
with the reflective surfaces, try putting the sculpture in a
refrigerator for a few minutes. When it comes out, it will
immediately fog up and you will be able to take a good picture."

I was wondering, does the fog up trick also work for highly
polished sterling silver finishes? When I try to take pictures,
especially of some pieces that are domed and highly polished, I
invariably get all kinds of weird shadows and lines from my
photo box, the camera, you name it. I try to control these
shadows by using many pieces of foam core, but it is very
difficult to do. Any tips would be appreciated! - Lori Bugaj

HI I have made a box of acrylic plastic, white diffuse material
3/16" thick. I put a small hole and frame around to hold the
camera. I place mirrors all around and adjust the height of the
table inside. I hold my work on a pin with beeswax to hold the
ring on the pin and shoot away. The white does not reflect light
but will reflect shadow so make sure you have even light. Hope I
helped you out. “RINGMAN” JOHN HENRY

The best way I’ve found for taking photos of jewelry is to make
a “light tunnel” out of tracing or layout paper. A tube of
about 8-10 inches in diameter and 20 inches or so long.

Place this on a desk or tabletop near a window with a good
amount of light coming in. I would keep the light from
striking the paper tube directly. Cover the far end of the tube
with another piece of layout/tracing paper by draping a scrap
over it.

Place your jewelry inside the tube (6 or 8 inches) Place your
automatic 35mm camera on a beanbag with the lens inside the
tube, focus, shoot. No flash. I guarantee this will be the best
jewelry picture you will ever have taken so easily.

The paper diffuses all the light; the shadows and reflections
are brought to a minimum. You can even experiment in the
evening with no sunlight, remove the flash from the camera(but
leave the din cord plugged in). Open the shutter and flash
multiple times at the paper tube from different angles, close
the shutter. Since this method eliminates the automatic
exposure, some experimentation is necessary to get the correct
flash/exposure ratio. 100asa will be around 3 or four flashes
held about 10" from the tube with a “small” flash unit.

John g

Hi Lori, I occasionally make large art objects from gold. I have
used professional photographers to take pictures of the pieces.
The first one to do this had trouble with all of the reflected
light bouncing around. He used the refrigerater trick and it
worked perfectly. Each photographer since has had the same
problem and I have suggested the same solution. It always
works. Good luck . Tom Arnold

There is also a product called dulling spray, available from art
supply stores and perhaps photography shops. It costs around $8
for a good sized can. The residue can easily be rubbed off the
jewelry after taking photographs.

Donna in WY