Five takeaways from our Instagram Live interview with Leo Bieber.
Leo Bieber is a jewelry photographer who specializes in still-life images. Based in London, and with more than 15 years’ international experience, his expertise lies in creating lighting designs and background sets that elevate the beauty of the precious stones and jewelry he works with.
Here are five highlights from his interview on our Instagram account @rapaportjewelrypro.
1/ Why focus on jewelry?
“I was shooting a catalog for a brand called Chatila Jewelry, who are very big in London, Geneva and in the Middle East. It was my first-ever jewelry catalog, and there was a lot of pressure on it. It was very early on in my jewelry career, and suddenly I had this catalog in my hands and it looked fantastic. To me, that was very much the initial experience, when I thought, ‘You know, this has legs.’ Before that, I had been an assistant to a still-life photographer, then continued as just a still-life photographer and tourist photographer, and it had never occurred to me that really diving into the jewelry world was part of my interest, that it’s what I wanted to do. This is something which I found enormously interesting and complex, and I happen to love that sense of new adventure even many years later.”
2/ Creating the magic
“Retouching is done to clean an image and make sure it looks as perfect as possible. When you shoot to such a small scale, dust is very relevant. When people are handling jewelry with gloves, they leave a little bit of thread and dust and fiber, so all of that has to be ‘retouched’ out. So I do have a retoucher within the studio. However, the image you see posted and looking perfect and beautiful is the image that comes off the camera. Yes, when you produce an image that has to go up on a billboard, it has to be seen with great scrutiny. It has to be clean; it has to look phenomenal. That’s where the retouching comes in. But as far as the actual setting of the image, the light, the way it hits the reflection, everything in the metalwork, in the stone, that is done on camera.”
3/ Spinels are a man’s best friend
“I love spinels. I’ve had great success doing projects with spinels. Lots of my personal artworks have also been around spinels. That’s possibly because of the way the gem refracts, the way they hold the color. I think their inclusion patterns are very interesting. I’m attracted to that, I suppose.”
4/ Stepping stones to success
“Be aware that you’re going to have to have another job [at the start]. I don’t believe that in the first five years or so you’ll be paying your rent. It’s probably a bit like being an actor or other creative jobs in competitive industries. I think going in-house to a brand would be very helpful, or even going to Net-A-Porter or similar as an in-house assistant or a photographer. You have to really learn about jewelry, the industry, what goes into taking images. You need to practice. You need to take everything from your mother, sister, girlfriend, best friend’s jewelry boxes and see if you can get a good picture. See what’s complicated about it. Don’t do it the easy way. Do it the hard way.
5/ Mr. Persistent insists you persist
“I’ve been called Mr. Persistent many times, and I am very persistent. I’m very focused and set. When you work with such small details, you have to be focused. The best advice I’ve ever been given is that you’re only as good as the images you throw away, and if there’s ever a time where you think ‘I could do it better,’ you’ve got to. Absolutely, every single time, do it as best as the image can possibly be, and then move on to the next image.”
The full interview is online on the Rapaport Jewelry Pro Instagram channel.
Main image: How I Became a Jewelry Photographer with Leo Bieber. (Nicole Bednarz)
