Almost every photographer has a similar reason why they got into photography - They love taking pictures, love the satisfaction of getting a great shot, and often love the idea that they can do what they love and make money doing it!
For many of us, we will work freelance or be our own bosses, others will be a staff photographer or something of that sort. Regardless of your employment, being a photographer comes with certain expectations and responsibilities. Most importantly you will need to be able to work with a group of people who often have very different ideas about what looks good; and you have to be able to take criticism.
Recently I did a shoot for Betteridge Jewelers for an engagement ring catalogue. The vision was basically up to me, but was guided by our designer in charge of catalogue layout and the head of business development for the company.
The challenge was to create a "look" for Betteridge that is appropriate. This "look" would ultimately become a motif or style for future ads and catalogues. Betteridge Jewelers has been around since the late 1800's and has been a high-end jewelry store located in the "old money" town of Greenwich, C.T. for many years. The store has a strong following and even has a store In Vail, Colorado and Palm Beach, Florida. I instantly knew what I wanted and I went for it. I shot each ring on old books from the 19th century and on some of the dark colored wood surfaces they had. I wanted to incorporate a modern feel of eligance while maintaining a traditional look - so I decided to use a bokeh effect.
Through out the shooting process, I worked closely with our graphic designer Jake Cooper (http://www.jakecooperdesgin.com). Given the proportions he needed for the layout posed a challenge. A wide shot that would be cropped long and narrow over two pages. This meant I had to shoot the rings all in line with each other, leave space for a break in the picture within the binding of the catalogue, shoot on a tripod at a low aperture close enough to rings to get the bokeh effect and get the diamonds in focus, shoot each individually, light each individually, and place them over each other in photoshop - phewww! Lets hope you don't accidentally move the camera, knock into a ring while trying to light another ring - or else you are shooting up to 12 frames all over again just o get one shot! On top of that, after all that work, sweating, cursing (hopefully not) - you still have a group of people with different opinions waiting to see what you got!
Below is a crumby scan of a print out that I made so that we can get our experts opinions about what needs to be fixed or reshot. Luckily by this point, I had already spent hours on these photos and was confident I would not have to reshoot. The process went like this.
Discuss ideas, shoot samples, quick edit, review, revise, shoot samples, quick edit, review, revise, shoot, more in depth edit, review, review, review, re-edit, review, review, review...you get the idea. You have to expect this especially working for a team. Generally your clients will trust that your vision and/or understanding of their vision will be accurately produced in the photographs - you will always have tweaking to do, expect it!
The photo below shows numerous but minor "problem" areas that were discovered by people such as our store manager, jewelry designer, expert sales and gemologist, owner, and my boss which is the head of business development - Win Betteridge son of owner Terry Betteridge.
After going through these corrections I started to notice things that bothered me and continued to work on the images until I was satisfied. After all was complete I believe our first catalogue will be a great way to educate people on what they like and what is important when choosing an engagement ring.
If you have any interest in viewing this catalogue, please visit my site http://www.jameskatt.com click on the "published" tab then click on the small icon on that page which will open up an external link including a digital copy of our catalogue. To view in fullscreen click inside the external link. If you want to see some of the most beautiful jewelry in the world, check out http://www.betteridge.com
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