Jewelry Photography Ecommerce Aesthetics: Key Principles You Must Follow

So your jewelry design game is flawless and rich in variety, but are you applying the right aesthetics during your photography sessions?

One thing consumers cannot do when craving to buy jewelry online is trying it on. This is where your jewelry e-store must have top-notch imagery, lavishly displaying your products with utmost detail and having the right models to help you sell them.

“There is no great brand without good Aesthetics”.

–         Pauline Brown (LVMH)

What are aesthetics?

Aesthetic means the pleasant, positive or artful appearance of an individual or object. A good representative example of the word aesthetic would be like comparing a Honda Civic to a Lamborghini Aventador SVJ and expressing heartily the reasons why the latter is much more attractive.

In the words of Pauline Brown, “It’s the pleasure derived from perceiving an object or experience through our senses. Aesthetic intelligence is the ability to decipher not only what feels good, but why and how to deliver on it”. 

Modeled Shots: Create desire through photography

Presenting jewelry on models is advantageous for several reasons. 

For the typical online buyer, it is a great method of interpreting jewelry scale. With a quick glance at your photos, consumers can portray the exact size and how your ornaments will appear on them by staring at a real human.

The more attractive your shot, the less you will pay for PPC = lower customer acquisition cost. 

Golden Rule = always think about how to get as much attention as possible with your photoshoots.

Additionally, magnifying your gorgeous items with the help of modeled shots will highly increase your jewelry e-commerce website content value.

Modeled shots can encourage your customers to better perceive your brand identity. Images displayed on your product page will have more appeal to visitors with models, not to mention that they can be an amazing option for use as featured images.

One more advantage of models demonstrating your jewels is the fact that you can feature various items in a single shot. Reveal your variety of stacked rings, let your potential buyers use their imagination to mix-and-match a pair of earrings with a fabulous choker chain, etc.

The idea is to leave them in awe with the right modeled shot that’ll give them the sense of choice and the power of combining multiple items at once.

Here’s a bad and good example of modeled shots:

Before The Session: Define your theme

Before you organize a jewelry photoshoot with carefully selected gorgeous models and a talented photographer to spice things up, you need to create a theme. 

This signifies knowing beforehand, what style of clothing or hairstyle your models will rock with your jewelry and what colors or expressions are you going after.

This is very important and you must find the right balance between your products and your models to make sure they blend into each other perfectly.

Defining your theme also means you know where exactly the photoshoot will occur. Is it outdoors in the jungle? Inside an old medieval castle? Underwater?

Will there be additional elements complementing both the model and your products such as animals or objects for instance? These are all key questions you must answer to define your theme and get the big picture before even taking a single photo.

Carefully selected models are the way to go

Remember this: carefully selecting the right models will bring your jewelry to life. You must be versatile in your selection process, this means race, ethnicity, skin tone and hair texture/color are all factors you must consider. 

If you’re targeting the world, I hope you are thinking of hiring models from different nationalities. You’d be surprised how many potential buyers you can push back by only selecting typical blonde hair and blue-eyed white girls for example. 

Skin tone, especially with a darker complexion, can amplify white gold, silver, titanium, or even rose gold jewelry items. Start experimenting with this and you will be surprised at the end results!

Emotions / Without Emotions

Taking photos of people adds an emotional component that is usually not nonexistent in prop shots. 

What is your jewelry about and how would you correlate this with the model representing it? What emotions are you looking for? Is it something more dispassionate, like a poker face or a stunning smile? Evil or funny? Sensual or sexy? The goal is to create a certain mood that will fit your jewelry.

Again, this is part of doing your homework when defining a theme in advance. Your photographer must guide the model thoroughly to mimic the results you’re going after.

You have to combine the model and jewelry in a way that allows the emotion behind it to properly articulate, or the magnitude, revolving around what sort of jewelry is being presented.

Sequentially, the right facial expression will influence the consumers’ response to the jewelry worn by the model.

Photographing jewelry on hands & ears

Close-up shots can be tricky. The secret of obtaining absolutely gorgeous hand & ear shots lies in the following two elements: Having hygienic hands/ears and making sure the choice of color for manicure fits both the jewelry item and background.

Also, you must put the focus on your jewelry items no matter what. This is where good lighting techniques and sharp Photoshop skills can truly impact your buyer’s decision-making.

Clothing style best positioning your jewelry brand

It is no secret that fashion clothing and jewelry go hand in hand. If you’re not planning to hire a stylist to orchestrate the chosen apparel during the shooting, then you must become the stylist.

When jewelry becomes a potential vehicle for storytelling, it becomes clear that the attire you choose, the colors and textiles that come with it, acts as the actual book telling this story. In this case, your brand.

A science behind balancing colors exists in luxury fashion. Multiple stylists lead to the color circle for stimulus. Discovering the equilibrium between cold and warm hues is essentially what defines accessorizing.

Try to coordinate jewelry and outfits in a way that directly echoes your brand identity to the masses. And please, don’t overdo it!

How to pick the ideal background for your jewelry items

Depending on the colors of metal and gemstone, selecting an appropriate background that is both eye-catching and visually appealing to your jewelry e-shop visitors is vital. Contrast and lighting need to be set in a certain way that will let the background remain soft and neutral while bringing the jewelry piece forward as the dominating detail.

For yellow gold jewelry, white background works better while silver is best used with darker tones. If you are presenting a new collection that features different metal colors, pick a background suiting for all of them like in the examples below. 

Conclusion

In a nutshell, there is no perfect answer when deciding what jewelry photography strategy will work best for your brand. Models will enhance your jewelry items when the aforementioned aesthetics are properly used, yes. Moreover, the synergy between your products, the models depicting them, and your overall brand identity must find the right balance. And it all falls on knowing what your goals are.

Thus, what is the best approach to snap jewelry? Begin by identifying and comprehending your product value, target buyers, and your brand definition in the global marketplace.