The photo above in the middle is the reason I’m so happy with my Sony a7R4 pixel monster:

I can crop what I want without the loss of quality.

My selection round often exists of a lot of playing around with the crop and rotation tool; on the hunt for the perfect composition that fits in with the rest of the series. And sometimes that means turning a half-body into a super close portrait.

Shooting Chloë the cat was so much fun. I was a little worried it would be a difficult task because with animals you never know if they want to corporate. But this adorable sphinx was super relaxed and easy to work with.

She did not stress at all and was totally ok in the arms of a stranger. Chloë even knew how to pose and showed several different faces, including an awesome wink.

Maybe it was her way of telling me she knew the secret answer to ‘the riddle of the Sphynx’.

‘What goes on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, and three legs in the evening?’

According to the greek myth, the Sphynx creature dwelt outside the city of Thebes (currently known as Luxor), and asked this riddle to all travelers, in order to let them pass. Anyone who could not reply correctly was eaten by the monster. The answer? A man, who crawls as a baby, walks on two legs as an adult, and uses a walking stick in his twilight years.

THE PRODUCT SHOOT RESULTS

Besides the beauty photos, we also needed 2 different product shots of the jewelry. So we head to the photography studio of JDO Management in Amsterdam to create these.

I chose to build a set with natural stones, because I always like to have a touch of nature in my photos. It gives an immediate touch of raw character to the setup.

On the right I direct a lamp through an orange glass plate and on the other side I position a small rgb light with warm red light. For enough sharp details, I keep my aperture at f9.0. But to make sure that the image will not look too flat, I position another stone closer to the front left of the camera, which therefore ensures depth of field and a slanted line in the composition as a counterpart to the cascading oblique light on the other side.

To avoid crazy reflections in the sphere I put several V-flats around me and afterward I photoshop the camera away so that the logo is clearly readable (use the slider below to see the before/after).

Contrary to what I had thought, I found the creation of the product shots more difficult with a big team looking over my shoulder. I guess that is because with the model shoots I am used to having spectators, but while shooting products I am usually alone.

On the other hand, it was handy to have a helping hand around. It happens so often that I find out while shooting that I actually need an assistant on set. Flexible arms with clamps can get you a long way, but they do not move around or keep a smoking device going. So I was happy to have Iva step in for that to make the idea for product set 2 with silver jewelry work.

I added smoke to make things more dramatic and shot it separately from the main product photo because it needs a different lightning setup.

The background has to be dark to even see the white smoke so I moved my light to the side. By using burst mode I captured lots of smoke options to choose from and edit into the shot.