You put a lot of love and effort into making your jewelry.
When you offer your jewelry for sale online, either through your own website or an online market like etsy.com, you want to make sure that a prospective customer can see just how important that jewelry piece is to you.
The best way to express that is through the quality of the photograph you take of each jewelry piece you offer.
It should come as no surprise to you that the higher quality the photograph, the better chance you have of getting a sale, and the better chance you have of getting a higher price for your creations.
Of course, you can invest in a good digital camera, learn about proper lighting and set up, and take the photos on your own.
That’s what I used to do, but I found that it took way too much of my time so I started looking to see if I could outsource this to a professional photographer.
Even as I started looking, to be honest I didn’t think it would be cost effective.
I found an online outsourcing service called elance.com (www.elance.com) and submitted my project to see if any photographers would bid on it.
To my surprise, there were many independent photographers who bid and the cost of their proposals varied greatly.
What I discovered is that you can get very high quality photography done by someone else in the range of $10~$20/piece, including shipping to and from the photographer.
Of course, this price is somewhat volume based meaning taking photos of 10 or more items.
Naturally, it is more cost effective for higher priced jewelry than for very low price jewelry, particularly if the jewelry piece is a one-of-a-kind piece that you plan to only make one of.
But if you are going to make many pieces of the same design, then I highly recommend that you look into outsourcing your photography because you can spread the cost of one picture across multiple sales of individual jewelry pieces.
Also keep in mind two other things when considering the cost per piece.
First, if all the time you take to photograph your own jewelry is taking away time that you could be using to work on more valuable income and profit generating activities, then you should include that consideration when evaluating whether outsourcing photography is right for you or not.
Second, remember that a very high quality photograph can help you demand a higher price for your jewelry, possibly even a price that more than covers the extra cost of the outsourced photography.
Back to my own story about outsourcing photography and what I did.
I looked at the portfolios of all the photographers that bid on my project, weighed that against the prices they offered for their services, and I settled on one photographer.
I have been very happy with the quality of her work and the value is excellent.
She took the picture of the beaded heart rings at the top of this page.
Her name is Rosie and if you would like to take a look at her work and/or contact her about your jewelry photography project you can check out her website here: Let Me Grow Studio
Good luck with your jewelry pictures!
Great post…and very timely for me.
I recently invested in a camera to take better photos of my jewelry so that I could really push the merchandise in my Etsy shop. It’s been an interesting experience.
The camera was the biggest investment–money to buy it and time to figure out how to use it properly. It’s also taken me a little bit of time to figure out a set up that works for me, but I’ve done it.
I made a dirt-cheap photo tent and can stage my photos pretty quickly. However, it does take me a few hours and hundreds of photos to get a good selection to work with.
I’m still figuring out how to make it go faster, but for me this is a great cost effective method. Plus, I have total control over the outcome of the photos, which i need. If I weren’t so patient, I would think about outsourcing the photography.
Thanks for the great information!
Elizabeth,
Thanks for your comment!
You’re right that everyone’s situation will be different.
Some folks will love learning a new skill like photography and that makes it all worthwhile for them.
And some, like you (not like me!), will be very patient with the process.
I decided to write the post because the more I thought about it I would bet that many folks who would choose to outsource if they could would probably never even think it was possible, or affordable.
For my situation, outsourcing photography has been great.
By the way, your jewelry on your etsy site is beautiful!
Great post Eri!
I’ve always wondered about this myself. I know I can do an adequate job but the time! Definitely something to think about.
Thanks for posting your experiences. I really appreciate it.
Hi Christine.
Whether it’s worth it or not definitely depends on your situation. If it’s a picture you can use for multiple items, or if the item you are photographing has a large profit margin, outsourcing the photography is definitely something to consider.