Denver, Colorado Christmas Lights Photograph

I went to downtown Denver to photograph this government building that is all lit up with Christmas Lights.  This was my second attempt to photograph this same building.  My first attempt failed because I didn’t use the tripod that I brought with me.  The reason that I didn’t use a tripod is because my body doesn’t care for cold weather and it was very cold, at least for me.  The photos that I took of this building looked good on my LCD viewing screen when I checked them, but when I saw the photographs on my computer I saw that they where slightly out of focus.

This photograph required a time exposure of about 2 to 3 seconds and I ended up moving slightly the first night that I took the photograph of this building.

Tonight the temperature was only 22 degrees F at a little bit before 7 p.m.  I think that the temperature was a little bit warmer the first night that I photographed this building. 

My body wasn’t cold tonight but my hands where.  I was wearing two pairs of gloves both nights.  I had on a heavy pair of gloves over a light pair of gloves and my hands where still cold.

I now have several other Christmas photographs, which where also taken at night, along with photographs on various other subjects, on my Flickr page.  Check out my photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimjuris  I will be adding more of my best photographs to my Flickr page in the near future.

Merry Christmas,

Jim Juris

Thanksgiving Banner Photograph

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone that is celebrating today.  It is a little bit cold here in the Denver, Colorado area today, but it is a nice day.

Today is a great day to be thankful and appreciate all of the things that we all take for granted.

A couple of days ago I was walking to the mail box to mail a letter and on my way I saw a great banner hanging outside of a house close to where I live.  The banner was of a Thanksgiving turkey.  Since the weather was fantastic, sunny and no wind, I took out my camera and tripod and photographed the Turkey banner.

Thanksgiving Banner

I have never seen a banner like this before.  Quite unique in my own opinion.

Jim Juris

http://www.inexpensivejewelryphotography.com

Your Website Photographs Are The Equivelant Of A Retail Store Display Window

Imagine this scenario.  You receive an invitation to attend the Presidential Inaugural Ball in January and you need a new outfit.

You hop in your car and go down the street looking for stores that sell outfits that are appropriate for the inaugural ball.

There are many stores in the city where you live and the first store is only 2 blocks away.  As you approach the store you notice that the display windows all have very long, large cracks in them.  The windows are filthy because they haven’t been washed in years.  The display items in the windows are poorly arranged and the same clothes have been on display in the store windows for several years. 

Knowing that there are numerous stores in your neighborhood that sell similar outfits, will you go into the store that you are approaching or will you hop back into your car and go to the next store a few blocks away?

If you think of your photographs as being the equivalent of a retail store window display you will be able to see why it is so important to use good photographs when selling your jewelry/craft items online.  Otherwise your shoppers will just jump back into their cyberspace cars and go to the next store.  There are thousands and thousands of stores to choose from in cyberspace.  Don’t let your website visitors skip going into your store.

Always remember that first impressions are very important and that you only have one chance to make a great first impression for your website visitors.

Look For A High Optical Zoom Number When Purchasing A New Digital Camera

I noticed that there are now digital camera’s with 12X optical zoom and even 15X optical zoom on the market.  My 2 year old digital single lens reflex camera only has 3X optical zoom. 

Does that mean that you should buy a new digital camera.  My answer is only if you have a digital camera that is 5 years old or older, otherwise keep the camera that you have.  Technology keeps improving and a year from now digital camera’s will be better than they are today.

Jim Juris

http://www.inexpensivejewelryphotography.com

Any Questions About Photographing Jewelry or Craft Items?

I know a lot of jewelry artisans need help with there jewelry photography.  So I would like to open up my blog and answer any questions that you have about photographing jewelry or craft items. 

Jim Juris

http://www.inexpensivejewelryphotography.com

 

Good Photographers look At The Subject Of Their Photograph From Every Possible Angle

 

 A couple of days ago as I was walking down the road to take some photographs I came upon this pair of shoes that where hanging from some cables overhead.  Normally I would never photograph something like this, but I took these photograph hoping to show one shoe in focus and the other shoe out of focus using shallow depth of field.  I don’t have a long enough lens to accomplish this but that is ok.

As I was returning home from my photo shoot I noticed the same pair of shoes that where hanging in the air, but this time I saw them from a completely different angle. 

I realized at that time that I did not take the opportunity to photograph these shoes from every possible angle.  Normally this is not something that I neglect to do, but this time I did.

I want to point out that you should always look at the subject of your photograph from every possible angle, front, back, left, right, above, and if possible from below, when you are taking photographs.  This applies to everything that you photograph such as jewelry, craft items, people, pets, nature, etc. 

You never want to come up to a subject that you are photographing and take the photograph from just one angle.  I know that sometimes this is not possible because of your surrounding environment but that is about the only exception to this rule.

I don’t consider these two images to be great photographs but I feel that they are perfect for showing the difference of how the shoes that are hanging down from an overhead cable look when you see them photographed from two different angles.

The peak of this church roof, shown in the upper photograph, adds some feeling of height and interest to the image.  I tried my best to use the rule of thirds for this image to make it look more appealing.

The lower photograph is probably a good example of how most people would take the photograph of this pair of shoes.  Even though I used the rule of thirds for the lower photo, the image doesn’t appeal much to me.

I hope that I have given you a good example of how important it is to look at the subject of your photograph from numerous angles instead of taking the easy way out and just shooting the photograph from one angle.

Jim Juris

http://www.inexpensivejewelryphotography.com

Self Portrait

  I will admit that I have no talent as an artist other than photography.  I decided today to do a self portrait of myself and see if I could make it turn out decent.  I spent all day Sunday, about 10 hours or so, on creating my self portrait.

I Have some brass practice wire for wire wrapping and the first thing that I did was create an outline of a face with this brass wire.  It only took me a couple of minutes to create a profile of a face.  The face turned out nice but it was too tall for the small gauge wire that I was using.  

I then took another piece of wire and made a much smaller face.  This face turned out nice but it was just a face outline.  I wanted something better.

I have lots of beads and bead chips that I haven’t used yet to make jewelry so I took some brown chip beads and placed them in the face outline.

Now my self portrait was starting to look better.  Next I decided that I wanted to give my self portrait a little bit of class so I took some more brass wire and experimented with making a bow tie.  At first I tried to wrap the bow tie around the brass wire that I used for my self portrait but that didn’t work.

I then made a bow tie and just slid it underneath the wire of my face outline.  I used some blue chip beads to fill in the inside of my little bow tie.  Yes, I know that bow ties are black, but this one just happens to be blue.

I was now ready to photograph my self portrait.  I placed the bead chips and the brass wire facial outline in my light box.

The photography is the part of the self portrait that took me a very long time to do.  I tried using different backgrounds for my self portrait and I finally decided on a white background.

After I took some photographs of my artistic creation I decided to use a white bead chip for the eye. 

I add the bead chip to enhance my self portrait and I took some more photographs.  Just when I was happy with my self portrait photo I realized that the white eye doesn’t look good on a white background.  I replaced the bead that I was using for the eye and continued taking photographs.

Several hours later I finished my self portrait photography. 

I wish that there was a way that I could make this item smaller and make it into a pendant for a necklace.  I like wearing necklaces with pendants.

Jim Juris

http://www.inexpensivejewelryphotography.com

 

 

 

 

Photographing Something Green

  My latest photo contest challenge is to photograph something that is green.  At first I couldn’t come up with anything that I thought would make a winning photograph.  A few days ago I had a few ideas pop into my head  of items that I could photograph for this photo contest. 

The first think that I came up with was green grapes.  While I was at the grocery store purchasing the grapes I also came up with the idea of photographing a green apple(s).

If you have read any of my other photography writings you probably know that I try to picture the image in my head before I even touch my camera.  That is what I did with this  grape photograph.  I had a thought while I was at the supermarket that it would be nice to have a contrasting background for the grapes.  While I was at the supermarket I purchased some red cabbage along with the green apples and green grapes to use in my photographs in order to make the grapes and apples stand out in the images.  

The photograph that you see here is one of three entries that I in the photography contest.  I won’t know the outcome of the contest until March 18. 

Jim Juris

http://www.inexpensivejewelryphotography.com

Bird Photography

 Yesterday was a very nice day in Englewood, Colorado so I decided to do some bird photography.  The afternoon temperature reached 49 degrees F.  The sun was hiding behind the clouds mid afternoon when I went down the street to photograph some ducks.  There is very little snow on the ground right now.  Almost all of the ice that was here for several weeks has finally disappeared.

Click on the images above to see them in a larger format.

I spent approximately two hours taking photographs of ducks and geese.  There where probably 50 or 60 ducks either in the water or walking around.  I was able to approach the ducks fairly easily but they wouldn’t allow me to come closer than six feet from them.

I photographed the ducks at different locations both on the grass near the water and also on the rocks along the shoreline of this man made lake.  I enjoyed being close to the ducks as I was photographing them walking around and eating grass and also swimming in the small portion of the lake that wasn’t frozen. 

After I had been there for a while I kept telling myself that I was going to leave, but since I was not cold I just kept taking photographs of the ducks.   I was very surprised when I uploaded the duck and goose images to my computer that I had taken 487 photographs of these birds.  I knew that I had taken at least 200 photographs yesterday afternoon, but I didn’t expect the number of photographs that I took of the birds to be anywhere near 500.  I can store over 800 images on my 1 gig memory card.

I will have to do this again because I love birds.

If you want something to photograph that isn’t jewelry or a craft item try spending some time photographing birds.  I am sure that you will enjoy photographing birds as much as I did.  Bird photography will be challenging.

Jim Juris

http://www.inexpensivejewelryphotography.com

I Made A Mans Necklace For Myself

  Several years ago I became interested in learning how to make jewelry.  I started making jewelry and participating on jewelry forums.  Shortly after I started making jewelry I noticed that numerous jewelry artists on the jewelry forums needed help on how to go about photographing their beautiful creations.  I felt that I could help these artisans because I always photograph my jewelry after I make it.  I came up with the idea of writing an ebook on jewelry and craft photography so that I could teach artisans how to take better photographs of their fabulous creations. 

Once I started writing my Inexpensive Jewelry Photography Techniques ebook I quit making jewelry.  I spent a year writing my ebook and creating a web site for selling my ebook.  That was about a year and a half ago. 

I was looking at the beautiful large jasper stones and the black agate pendant with stripes that I have had for some time and I finally decided yesterday that I would make a necklace for myself with those materials.  I also wanted the necklace to be about twenty inches long because I don’t like short necklaces.   I spend about thirty minutes looking at the various bead and bead chips that I had and I decided to use sodalite bead chips, which are a royal blue color, with the jasper stones in order to extend the length of the necklace that I was making for myself.  Blue also happens to be my favorite color. 

I placed two sodalite bead chips between each stone to extend the length of my necklace.  Several hours later I finished creating my necklace.  The necklace turned out to be twenty one inches long.  I am very pleased with the necklace that I created.

I am also happy that my necklace is twenty one inches in length because it makes it easier for me to put on my necklace.  I put the necklace on by putting the pendant on my back and looking down at the clasp.  I also take the necklace off the same way.  If the necklace was any shorter I would have a harder time taking off and putting on the necklace.

I want to thank the people on the About.com Jewelry Making forum for telling me the name of the bead chips

Of course I had to photograph the necklace.    If you click on the image above you will see a larger image of my necklace.  I hope that you like my necklace. 

I started taking photographs of my new necklace right after it was created.  I didn’t get a photograph that I was happy with at that time so I put my camera away and went to bed.  A couple of hours later I woke up and decided to try some new ideas that I came up with to photograph the necklace.  I tried them and I was very happy with the results.  I finished my photography about 4 a.m. and I went back to bed. 

Feel free to leave any comments you would like about my necklace. 

Jim Juris

http://www.inexpensivejewelryphotography.com