ABOUT THE PICTURES
SHOWN ON THIS WEBSITE
"Midnight Aura" Necklace by Robert Lang - Rose-cut and Full-cut round Fancy Black Diamonds set in a Pure Palladium circle pendant
(click on picture for more information on this lovely piece)
Image by Kimberly Arpaia
Exclusive Handmade Arpaia Fine Jewelry Barrel Safety Clasp shown on "Rhapsody"
Full cut brilliant round Natural Fancy Brown Diamonds set in 18-kt Gold
(click on picture for more information about this magnificent necklace)
Image by Kimberly Arpaia
Very few of the images on this website are professional shots. At present, the only professional images are the pictures of Arpaia's signature necklace "Black Ice" shown on the Home and Necklace Pages and the main picture of the Rainbow Moonstone Necklace shown on the page titled More Exquisite Midnight Sparklers.
All of the other pictures on this website are Arpaia's amateur shots. We do not use professional equipment or studio lighting. Arpaia's photos are taken with an inexpensive digital camera on automatic macro setting without flash (Arpaia started with aKodak EasyShare but now has permanently borrowed Lang's Canon PowerShot since it's so light and small).
Arpaia has no
professional photo training, though in her early twenties she attempted a
photography class at a local arts school but found it way too complex
and lost complete interest. Thank goodness for the advent of simple
digital photography and automatic cameras.
Anyway, since Arpaia does not
have a special place to take jewelry photos, she photographs jewelry on her front porch for
natural light or in her living room. Arpaia often uses nearby fabrics and objects for
background displays and prefers to use only natural light. Oftentimes, the light source in the picture will be obvious or the description with the picture will specify the type of light (e.g., outside, shady room, sunny room, or artificial light if a ceiling light or table lamp was on while shooting the picture since Arpaia does not use camera flash).
Fortunately, Arpaia does not know much photoshop, so what you see is what you get. We do our very best to take accurate jewelry photos that show detail, craftsmanship and quality. We do not attempt to enhance the jewelry. We can assure you that our jewelry looks much more gorgeous in person than in the photos. This is especially true with respect to gemstones - sparkle does not show up well in a still photograph without studio light since sparkle is produced by light and movement. So the gemstone jewelry looks rather flat in our photos. When you see the jewelry in person, put it on, and look in the mirror, you will be wowed by the radiant sparkle and magnificience of our pieces.
With respect to digital darkroom techniques, Arpaia typically enhances the images for the website using the following photoshop tools: (1) rotation of picture so that the jewelry is shown in the right position; (2) cropping so that the jewelry appears more predominant than the background; (3) automatic sharpening (Arpaia uses the macro camera setting so most shots have sharp focus, but since the automatic sharpening tool might reveal enhanced detail, she will sometimes apply it to a photo); (4) automatic lighting/exposure correction so that the colors of the jewelry shown in the images are closer to the actual colors (in this regard, it is important to keep in mind that the color shown on our monitor might not be what you see on your monitor; internet technology has not advanced to the point of achieving across the board true color stabilization); and (5) very rarely, but once in a great while, Arpaia will use the spot healing brush to edit out a distracting foreign object or defect on the backround display. For example, when viewing images on a monitor, if the picture is a good shot of the jewelry but is marred by a speck of dirt or a chip on a dish used to photograph the jewelry on, Arpaia might edit out the annoyance by cropping the background or by spot healing. Again, because Arpaia shoots in automatic macro format, that little spec of dirt or chip looks huge. If the background defect remains in the picture, the eye will see only the dirt or ugly chip and not the pretty jewelry. We can't have that! So, Arpaia uses the photoshop spot healing brush to erase the problem.
On a final note, after much encouragement by Arpaia, Lang undertook his first solo photo shoot and the digital jewelry images came out fabulous! Here's proof. So exciting!
"Nesting Pearls"
Original Custom Cufflinks by Robert Lang
Click on picture for more information
Image by Robert Lang
