Sea Glass Photography: Capturing Laura Williamson’s beautiful Celtic Shore Collection – Product Photographers in Glasgow
As a photographer, I’m always fascinated by the different types of product you come across and Laura introduced me to the fascinating subject of sea glass photography. When I’ve been on the beach looking for shells I’ve often seen bits of coloured glass which have been worn down over the years so they become smooth. I’ve often thought that they were quite beautiful but never thought that there was a name for it or even that people would make jewellery out of them.
Laura wanted to show all the different types of colours of sea glass some of which are actually very rare. Sea Glass Photography
Laura had previously been selling her jewellery via the e-commerce site Etsy and had tried photographing the jewellery herself but she was about to launch a new website and needed something more professional.
Even within the different colour groupings there is great variety of subtle shades. Sea Glass Photography
The brief was first of all to photograph all the different categories of types of sea glass for her website. Again, this was a complete revelation to me. Laura explained all the different types of glass bottles, containers and products which have been made over the centuries and how these produce all the colours of the rainbow from vivid reds and oranges to subtle lilacs and greens. Some of them are even fluorescent under UV light. This type of glass was commonly used for fluorescent dials and clock faces before WW2. Another amazing fact was that it takes at least about 30 to 40 years of rolling about in the sea and on the beach to produce a piece of smooth sea glass. In fact many pieces are well over 100 years old, so you’re holding a little piece of history in your hand.
For the product photos, I didn’t want to distract from the jewellery so I just kept it very simple. Sea Glass Photography
One key thing for Laura was to show the different colours clearly and how they looked when the light shone through them. I experimented with some different lighting set ups until I found one which worked perfectly. For the finished jewellery I used a few extra props like seashells and pebbles. As the sea glass was very colourful I wanted to keep this very simple so as not to distract from the jewellery.
Fluorescent sea glass comes from glass dials and clock faces which were produced before WW2. Although not dangerous they are slightly radioactive. Sea Glass Photography
I was a little sad when I reached the end of the shoot. I was so extranced by these beautiful objects and fascinated by the story of how these once discarded pieces of rubbish had become unique pieces of jewellery decades, sometimes centuries after they’d first been thrown away.
These are sea marbles. The action of the sea has worn them down to create a lovely frosted effect. Sea Glass Photography