Photographing Enamel on Silver Clay

If you want to see why photographers get big bucks, just try shooting enamel jewelry! I took more than a hundred shots tonight of the new enameled locket, trying to get a photo that encompassed all my requirements for the shot: good color, nice layout, obvious transparency and gloss on the enamel, three-dimensionality, movement, depth of view, etc. All I can say is thank heavens the days of shooting film and taking it for developing before assessing the results are history!

This is the second best image, not nearly as good as my favorite, but an hour earlier in the evening.

This bird locket has been sitting on my table for months, waiting for me to decide how to fill and finish it. I debated keum boo like the last one, but couldn't make myself do it. This weekend I woke up one morning thinking: "enamel it, of course!" When I started to play with setting tiny feathers inside, I remembered the stash of irridescent peacock feathers that seemed just the perfect color.

Now I have a zillion ideas for more lockets. You can see the keum boo bird locket here.