New Background

Much as I loved my grey slate backdrop for my photos, and the way it contrasted so nicely with the orange copper, I have decided to replace it.

The main reason for this decision was based around treasuries. When putting together a treasury people are usually looking for colours which match or at least complement each other. The dark grey slate background and the bright copper foreground gave my images 2 colours, items with coloured gemstones in would have 3 different colours. Reducing the number of colours in my images gives a higher chance that my images will fit in with the colour scheme of a treasury.

My cat, checking out the new box while
I was trying to take pictures!

The other reason was the dark feel the slate gave to my images, in contrast to the light, airy feel I think my items have on their own and which I'm trying to portray. Whilst the grey fitted in fine with my old banner and site design of grey and white, it looks rather ugly on my new site and could also stand out too harshly in a treasury where all the other items have light backgrounds.

With my new DSLR camera I did consider having another go at producing a pure white background, figuring this would probably be a lot easier with a higher quality camera and RAW format images. However, in the end I decided that, whilst a bright, white background does look stunning and very classy for jewelry, it wasn't a good fit for my style. My jewelry is much softer, more casual and rustic and I felt a slightly warmer and textured backdrop was more appropriate.

Fortunately it didn't take me long to find the perfect thing. A quick (well it would have been quick if there hadn't been so many cool things for me to look at!) trip to The Container Store found me an awesome whitewashed wooden box, just the right size. I already love the difference it has made to the newer items in my store and I will be upgrading all the existing images over time. To see how it looks with a whole store of items with this background, check out my new website: http://www.embergrass.com

What do you think of the new background?