Photography of small reflective objects was undertaken for Chilcotts Auctioneers, and yes, in the past I’ve photographed the team too. However, these images are intended for marketing materials, flyers and banners rather and so forth, rather than catalogues.
In the past, I’ve also photographed on location at the auction rooms but for small numbers of small items, my central Exeter photography studio is generally more convenient.
The challenges are that these items are small and highly reflective, basically tiny compound mirrors, and we’re not looking for self-portraits are we? However, the lighting needs control to express both form of the pieces, but also to highlight the edges.
Main lights are often shot through a diffusion scrim with rear projection modifiers sometimes used to express the edges and add highly focused lighting. Although tabletop work, the rig generally swamps the subjects. In a way, this is one area where photography of small items is the equivalent of filming people on a commercial film set! The scrims offer a lovely smooth light source whereas the projection rigs give a harder, more edgy, light. Back lighting will generally add e bit of edge detail, such as the lip of the small silver pot.
Of course, any rear lighting will find every bit of dust on the acrylic base, but that is the only retouching on these. (Apart from removing the monofilament that the jade broach was suspended by).