Product Photos - Normally They're Not A Problem but Swarovski Must Shine

So here we are - another weekend upon us, another week in the past. My LJIdol prompt is still grinding on my nerves. What I wrote yesterday was better, but still not where I wanted to be. I'm going to try and wrangle some more over the weekend, but the deadline is looming. It's rare for me to have difficulty with a prompt - I love writing to prompts and have done so for years. But this one is clear as mud to me - I'm drowning in minutiae. 

I'm drowning in the details. The quote is too broad 
and I can't narrow it down to be something 
succinct. I'm going to have to take a hedge shears 
to it and really cull. I'll play with different formats 
and see if maybe choosing a different structure 
might help me climb out from this hole. 

My friend from Montana is off on her Great Adventure - a trip to Germany and the Netherlands. I know she'll have a wonderful time and come back home inspired to create beautiful things. She had originally planned this trip for last year, but postponed it because of Covid, finally committing to take it this Spring. I'm very happy for her, she's going to have a lot of fun. 

When photos are taken properly, Swarovski crystals 
are mesmerizing. When the lighting isn't right, though, 
they look dull and uninspiring. Wednesday's photos 
were awful. I'm hoping, when I look carefully at 
Friday's photos, they'll be a vast improvement. 
If not, I'll have to redo all of them once more. *sigh*

I spent more than five hours yesterday retaking all of the photographs I had taken on Wednesday. I think these turned out better, but it was still a PITA. I'll pull them over to the laptop today and take a closer look on the much larger screen. If necessary, I'll start it a third time next Wednesday, and I'll probably dump the diffuser box completely. The whole idea is to get sparkle - these are Swarovski crystals. They have to shine. I was missing the shine on Wednesday's photo run. I'm grateful I only took three pages worth of photos on Wednesday rather than the full run. But, yesterday I took group and individual photographs for the entire selection of the 8mm cube size. I'm crossing my fingers that these photos will look great, but if not, I'll do them once more. 

This is similar to my current set-up - a light 
diffuser with spotlights to each side. I don't 
have the top light, but work with a third light 
that helps spotlight the refractive angles. If 
these photos don't work, I'll have to drop 
the diffuser box completely and photograph 
bare. In a lot of ways, that would be easier, 
but it's not a perfect solution. 

Since it's going to take me a long time to get the photos sent from my phone to my email, I'm cutting this short today. We'll have a beautiful, if windy, day today for DH to work in the garden, but tomorrow it will rain, so no grilling. No matter - we have plenty of food in the house that doesn't require cooking outside. I hope all of you have a wonderful weekend and I'll be back on Monday. Slava Ukraini.