When I was asked to send my work to be considered for the new David Yurman catalog, I was very excited! Normally, my moody imagery is what I create for portrait clients, so I was happy to go into this direction for such an established jewelry brand.
One of the challenges of this shoot was the lighting. The David Yurman team gave me some references that showed sunlight over the model’s shoulder. Since we didn’t have access to natural light, I achieved this look using strobe light and a careful selection of modifiers. It was also important to me to keep a gentle baroque mood overall and allow the jewelry to be top of mind.
I love bringing my creative voice together with a client’s vision. Check out the results on David Yurman’s website and my latest blog post below.
I made the lighting design for David Yurman’s latest men’s jewelry catalog with all Profoto lights and modifiers. I was able to make the look of high sun light coming in over male model Paul Kelly’s shoulder and dialed it in to bring the mood to focus on the jewelry.
The Giant White Umbrella 210cm helped with the soft fill light. They don’t make it anymore! But I would love to see it come back for sale. It’s Especially popular with fashion shooters, the Profoto Giant Umbrella is a unique 7' light shaper that's eminently portable and easy to set up and break down. The white version is ideal in situations that require maximum softness without hot spots with a neutral color rendition.. Both 1/3 and 1 stop front diffusion fabrics are available for extra softness. I used the 1 stop dif.
For set design I chose a beautiful Oliphant Backdrop. While Capture One Pro 22 helped us dial in the color style in the new Canon R5 mirrorless 45 Megapixel Full-frame CMOS Sensor. With 1,053 Automatic AF zones, it is easier to get the sharpest focus on the jewelry to make it the center of attention.
The first image below is my lighting test, which is a little bit more raw and closer to my natural portrait style. I included it simply because I love it! In the images after, you can see we dialed in the highlights and fill light for a more elevated look and focus on the jewelry pieces.
BTS Images!
