Charleston, South Carolina and Miami, Florida Jewelry Photographer | Kate Benson

In all businesses you reach a point in growth where you can’t do it all by yourself anymore. It’s a great thing to have happen but at the same time, it’s hard to give up control. It’s how we photographers go from being a one man (or woman) show to becoming a brand. It doesn’t usually happen overnight but over years with hard work and maturity. My business has been hitting these growth points for the last few years and I’ve solved them by everything from hiring full time team to outsourcing smaller tasks. In fact, I have a meeting tomorrow to hand over another part of the business into more qualified hands (seriously, I don’t have the time or interest for Instagram… I know it’s important but it’s just way to narcissistic for me). Last summer, it was time for me to bring in new eyes and get a photo editor to help me with my website. What occurred was a huge and much needed/overdue change. We went with a design for the website that really challenged the edit workflow and so if you are seeing things moving around a lot lately, it’s because I’m trying to put new work on a couple times a year but the flow of the website makes it hard. So hang tight with me on that. It will get to where it needs to be.

Which brings me to jewelry. One of the hardest items to photograph is jewelry. I’ve talked about it a lot. Often, as you’ve likely seen on my blog and website jewelry is photographed on a clean background. But, every once in a while, I get to play. I’m really interested in cut paper backgrounds. I love that they are whimsicle and playful. So for a fun personal project, feeling like I needed something on my website with jewelry in a different way, my assistant Chelsea and I created a fun forest set with gold necklaces and earrings. I’d love to know what you think of it!

 

Charleston South Carolina Fashion Photographer | Kate Benson | Studio and Lifestyle Model Test Shoot

If you’ve been following my product and model photographer feed on Instagram, you probably have seen a new face lately. This stunning model is Eliza, and I had the opportunity to help her with a model test shoot at the end of February.

Eliza is looking to attend school in New York, and wants her model book to showcase her versatile looks to the NYC market. In order to add more variety to her portfolio, her modeling agency gave her some art direction to move forward with. During our conversations leading up to the model test shoot, I was able to take that art direction and play with different ideas for the desired two studio and two lifestyle shoots.

We had a lot of fun shooting around my neighborhood just outside of Charleston, SC. It was supposed to rain, so instead of doing the lifestyle looks outside around sunset, we changed it up and did them first thing in the afternoon. We were just too excited to get photos from the marsh and around the budding foliage that we rushed around from location to location to beat the rain. Luckily, we wrapped up the second look just as it started to drizzle! Eliza was a trooper and worked around mud and no-see-ums to get us these images.

 

Once we got in from the rain, we moved into the studio. Eliza has beautifully long red hair, and I wanted to find a way to accent it. After looking for some inspiration, I decided to go with an untraditional two-colored backdrop, using red and blue. I also had a red chair to use as a prop. Eliza brought some great clothing options for the studio looks, and once I saw her amazing yellow jumper, I knew I wanted to play with the primary colors. As Eliza was getting her makeup done by the talented Rosa, I found my stellar large Christian Roth sunglasses and a yellow industrial fan and finished setting up the studio space. Here are some of my favorite, fun, over-the-top images from the first look.

After the playful first look, we moved to the second, more serious shoot. Some of the art direction from Eliza’s modeling agency was to have her modeling in menswear, with slicked-back hair. So we put her in a men’s blazer, sat her down in my red chair, and took a variety of shots. After a few images, Eliza wanted to finish her shoot without any makeup, and the results are stunning!

We all worked a little later than anticipated, but the results were definitely worth it. Eliza was able to add images to her book from 4 very different looks, and I hope she finds success in NYC! A special thanks to Eliza’s mom for being a great assistant and bringing plenty of fun outfits and props to use, Rosa for working hair and makeup magic and Chelsea for overall photographer assisting!

South and North Carolina Product Photographer | Kate Benson | Jewelry E-commerce Photographer

It’s been a busy start to 2018 here in Charleston, South Carolina! I’ve been working on various product photography projects, including a large one for Moonglow Jewelry. They are a jewelry company based in Miami, Florida who reached out to me while looking for an e-commerce product photographer. They wanted a new direction for their website product photography.

Moonglow’s website is filled with unique pendant jewelry. They truly take their saying “every moment has a moon” to heart. Their beautiful pieces contain a moon pendant that is customizable. You pick a date, and they tell you what the moon phase was and use that as your pendant. It’s such a great idea to remember those special dates by!

At first, Moonglow contacted me for a test shoot. Their art direction was to make the jewelry products look like Tiffany & Co’s. I was ready for this request because I always treat jewelry with the same care and attention to detail, whether it’s costume jewelry or a 2 million dollar ring. I strive to present products in the most flattering way possible. Moonglow sent me a few pieces, and I played with the lighting until I was satisfied with the image, and they agreed. Afterwards, they sent me the rest of their products.

This shoot was unique because of the number of products and the amount of recoloring needed. Moonglow sent over 150 jewelry pieces to shoot after the test products. Included products were necklaces, bracelets, rings, earrings, and a few other accessories. I often had to do a new setup for each style of jewelry.

Here are some examples of my jewelry product photography for Moonglow.

 

It look a lot of careful movements working with the different setups and getting the lighting right, but I am pleased with the results. After the shoot, they came back and asked if I could create the missing birthstones in some of the pieces they didn’t have all 12 colors in. So we used CGI to create the remaining 11 months of stones.

I look forward to working with Moonglow Jewelry again and wish them the best success with their revamped website!

If you want to see more studio and lifestyle shots, see this Charleston product photographer’s instagram!

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