We started expanding our wedding photography portfolio by taking pictures of rings, graciously provided by Krikor and Marina of Lugaro Jewelry. My original plan was to bring the lights and the diffuser tent to the store, but it became apparent that photographing diamonds requires much more light than could be comfortably accommodated on location.
In fact, at least three lights are needed to capture the brilliant facets of a diamond in colour: a key – highly diffused light, and two additional lights of different intensity. I used an Alien Bees studio flash with a large soft box diffuser
Another point to consider when photographing jewelry or gemstones is textural contrast. Since the objects themselves are highly polished, hard and reflective, using a background that is rough, soft and light-absorbing is a good idea. Of course, rules are made to be broken, so a reflecting background, such as this hand-painted lacquer tray from Kanazawa, can complement the main object nicely.
The biggest challenge, of course, is to come up with an original idea for a photo after seeing hundreds of highly polished, but similar, images in magazine ads. The idea to use a book emerged during the shoot. The book, incidentally is one of the volumes of Pushkin’s letters – a tribute to our heritage and, paraphrasing Obi-Wan Kenobi, a more elegant time.
The most rewarding aspect of this project for me was a chance to do it together with Svetlana, who was involved at all stages. We used to do a lot of photography side-by-side during our travels before Anya was born, but since then, I was doing most of the shooting, and my style, technique and even equipment changed. This time, Anya was in daycare, and we could both focus on the shoot. Perhaps, one day in the future, we will shoot together with Anya?
, baking is supposed to be good for kids, as it teaches them methodical approach (measuring ingredients, etc.), patience (waiting for the thing to actually bake) and moderation (not eating the whole batch of muffins at once). As you can see from the pictures, success is a relative thing. Still, it was good fun.
. This lens has recently became my main walk-around lens, replacing a 
in this role. At first I was skeptical – I thought that if I would be limited to a single focal length, all photos from that shoot would look largely the same. However, I now think that shallow DOF provided by f 1.4 compensates for the absence of zoom, and the images actually look more interesting than those taken at f4. I am beginning to agree with a friend of mine, who said that if an image does not have a shallow DOF it does not look “special” (his background is in portrait photography; this does not apply apply to landscape, for example).
, so I could practice shooting with it. In terms of physical bulk, this lens is not much larger than a 
, which I am used to, but the fixed focal length and the relatively more shallow depth of field give it a noticeably different feel. I really like the beautiful bokeh produced when shooting with a wide-open aperture. One neat feature of the 
and a rather monstrous 
lenses as well as a 
, all of which Armando was kind enough to lend me, along with about 10 years worth of his own experience. It was quite exciting to feel the adrenaline-charged atmosphere of the game and, as a photographer, to operate in a drastically different regime from my usual travel- and portrait-style of shooting (equipment-wise, I typically use a 
with a 
