Photography of pearls

When it comes to photography, there are many options available.

It is important to know that every natural pearl is unique and sometime cannot be generalized in only Grades, color or Shapes; they may have the same specifications, but they are all slightly different.
However, if a customer requests us to photograph a specific product in direct sunlight, we will gladly oblige.

CRITICAL POINT
Before we begin, there is one critical point to remember.

- Pearls with a high luster act as a light reflection mirror, which means that exposing them to a different color environment, such as green, or even your hand, will affect the color of a pearl.

That is why, it is best to photograph them in a seal environment with a white background to best display their natural and true color.

Therefore, why don't we expose them to sunlight, where products will appear more natural?
This may work occasionally, or for personal use in order to create stunning images for Instagram or other social media.
However, it might not be suitable when you are photographing them on a daily basis and keep every picture consistent.
When photographing under the sunlight, there are a few points to consider:
- Weather (Sunny, Cloudy, Rainy days)
- Environment (Green Background, Grey Background, etc..)
- Time (Morning, afternoon, Sunset)

Theses criteria affect the color of your pearl especially high luster pearls.

You cannot afford to continue experimenting daily in order to determine the optimal settings for that particular product, or for example wait for a sunny weather and delay all your team works.

You could keep adjusting your camera settings (according to your personal preference), which may work well in some photography industries but for a pearl store theses changes may affect your team, as there are no real structure or standard for them to follow.

Experiment using flashlight in a controlled environment, with different background and sometime different lightning to see how the picture may look like.

close shot from the product with flashlight higher up:

Same product on a different Background with flashlight higher up:



Same product with lightning that was 50CM Lower the previous pictures:


It was a small example, but I'm sure you can see the distinctions; colors will appear slightly different. Green, black or even white background, the pearls surface reflection will slightly change according to the natural background, this is how small details may changed the products images.

Considering all of this, and picturing pearls in the sunlight against a pleasing backdrop, our products will undoubtedly look fantastic! We might even sell a few more!
Here is one when we take them under the sunlight:

Here is in a lightbox same product:
however our goal is not making our products to look great, but we want to show our customer better details of the pearl, how spotty the pearl can be, more than looking way beautiful, as the surface of the pearl affects the pricing considerably and customer need to know what they are paying for!!! Especially with CMWPEARLS

Color may influence the price slightly, but not as much as quality.
You should be aware that the color settings on each device are by default set differently. For example, if you look at a mac, a pc, a different monitor, or even a different smartphone, the colors are different (those are experiment we went through and we are still learning everyday).  In order to best picture the pearl imperfections, a camera is needed to achieve it.