Jewelry photography is a particularly specialist discipline and is incredibly challenging due to the fact that the objects are small and tend to reflect light easily.

The highly technical expert skills required along with specialist lighting equipment means that many freelance photographers feel that it too difficult and expensive to take on. This extra attention to detail and excellent touch up skills are crucial in order to display the gemstones and precious metals in their best light.

How to break into Freelance Jewelry Photography

This can be a difficult area to get into as most clients will want to see examples of previous work in either brochures or on websites. It can be worthwhile beginning in a less difficult field at first to build up your skills, especially of close up work and also to gain a reputation as a photographer in general.

A plan of action could be to research and introduce yourself to any local jewelry designers or small retailers and offer to make a portfolio for them charging just enough to cover the cost of materials. This way you can start to build a portfolio up. This is the best way to gain paying clients and by being able to showcase examples of your previous jewelry work, this could be your main tool for landing paid assignments.

Who hires Freelance Jewelry Photographers?

Jewelry designers that want to produce marketing material to showcase their collections in the best possible light and therefore need a photographer who is able to produce artistic, well produced, close ups of their jewelry.

What to Charge

One estimate is to charge between $2,000 and $4000 per set of photographs based on a day’s shooting.

However what you can charge depends on many factors. You do need to look around and compare what other photographers are charging in this field at the time. Always bear in mind that the equipment for this specialty is expensive so your initial outlay will take a while to recoup.

Tasks Expected of a Freelance Jewelry Photographer

You will need to use a variety of props to create a suitable setting and be able to operate well in variable light conditions, as well as clever use of studio lighting to demonstrate the exceptional features of the pieces of jewelry.

Skills of a Freelance Jewelry Photographer

Freelance jewelry photographers need to pay great attention to details. They should have extensive knowledge of light effects and how to display jewelry to their best advantage.

Equipment used by a Freelance Jewelry Photographer

The key equipment requirements are lighting, manual focus and a decent tripod. Lighting for jewelry photography is very important. Light sets equipped with true color daylight balanced compact fluorescent bulbs are a very good investment. There are also specialist LED bulbs to light up diamonds to a very high standard. It is usual to see the reflection from surrounding images in the photograph and this is when a lighting box is desirable to remove the reflective images whilst photographing jewelry. Also for close ups of jewelry, you will require a camera with decent manual focus abilities plus you should use macro lenses for improved results when photographing jewelry. Macro lenses were purposely designed for close ups and capturing those details.

Where to look and apply for jobs

A photographer who specializes in freelance work has to be able to find work for themself.
There are many freelance websites that offer work for freelancers to bid on and another way is to display their services and portfolio on a website.

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