Years ago I started practicing photography as a tool to capture wildlife portraits as inspiration for my jewelry designs and fell in love with wildlife photography.
Interestingly, engaging in both Photography and jewelry design affected my perspective and the way I create and in both fields!
The first principle that guides me in both design and photography is simplicity.
Emphasis on composition, separation, contrast, relations and spacing between shapes and lines, effective silhouettes, all of these principles are the basis for a good aesthetic photograph and design in my eyes.
When looking at a small scale jewelry you should easily understand what you see, same in photography, keeping it simple and clearly understood even when looking at it in a small scale is a key to a good image.
When I started photographing I was mainly attracted to animal portraits and closeups and was trying to encapsulate their beauty to a minimum of shapes and lines that capture their essence.
The same principles that guided and influenced my jewelry designs from the beginning affected the way I was photographing.
After practicing photography for a while I realized that some very important key elements might be missing from most of my work in both fields - emotion, storytelling and sense of place and time.
I started focusing on these elements in my photography and soon enough it influenced and inspired my jewelry designs as well.
I found it challenging in photography to focus on emotion, storytelling and sense of place and time, while still maintaining the aesthetic values and simplicity I was looking for.
In wildlife photography we can plan, hope and try to achieve a dream shot, but nature is not in our control and to be honest most times we can not capture the image we were dreaming about.
In the rare occasions when everything falls together I feel unparalleled satisfaction and that’s why I love wildlife photography so much!
The beauty in jewelry design and paintings is that there is no limits for my imagination, I can place all the elements I want together!
Here are a few examples of how I use my photography as inspiration for my jewelry design and vice versa.
For more of my jewelry designs you can visit my Jewelry shop: https://www.etsy.com/shop/siberianartjewelry/
Nubian Ibex I captured in Israel
The jewelry design inspired by my Nubian Ibex image.
Well, this was the very rare occasions when everything fell together in the image, I was very lucky to be at the right place at the right time and to witness this magic moment and document it in such a way.
I did not have to use my imagination too much and just tried to keep the composition as close to the original image I captured and try to simplify it a little to make it work as a jewelry design.
I’m very happy with the way the jewelry design came up but I still don't think it can compete with the power of the original image.
You can see all my Nubian Ibex jewelry designs and order here
Snow Leopard image I captured in Mongolia.
The jewelry design inspired by the Snow Leopard image, I loved the pose of the leopard in this image because I think it’s capturing the essence of the Snow Leopard and its incredible grace and adaptation to the harsh life in the mountains.
I tried to make this design a little more geometric and added a little of my imagination, notice the use of straight lines in the design, it emphasizes with the Leopard natural environment characterized by the sharp and jagged mountains.
You can see all my Snow Leopard jewelry designs and order here
Emotional image of a Puma and kitten hug I captured in Patagonia, Chile.
The jewelry design inspired by the image, I added sense of place (the the mythical Torres Del Paine towers in the background) that I could only dream to capture together with the emotion in the original image.
You can see all my Puma jewelry designs and order here
Dall Sheep Image I captured in the Yukon, Canada.
The jewelry design inspired by the image, I added stronger action and storytelling to what I was able to capture in the original image.
You can see my Dall Sheep designs and order here
Polar Bear Image I captured in Canada.
The jewelry design inspired by the image, I added tension to the composition by making the cubs smaller and used positive and negative spaces to create a story and sense of place and time.
You can see all my Polar bear designs and order here
Humpback whale breaching I captured in Baja California, Mexico.
The jewelry design inspired by the image, I wanted to tell the story of both worlds above and below water at the same time.
Still dreaming about trying to capture a real image showing both worlds this way :)
You can see all my Whale design and order here
Moose couple captured during fall in Alaska.
Not a great photo but it inspired me, I love Moose!
The jewelry design inspired by the image, I wanted it to express more emotion and to have cleaner and simpler background from what I could capture in the original image.
You can see all my Moose designs and order here
Wolverine captured in Finland.
The jewelry design inspired by the image and as you can see it is very similar to what I captured in my camera.
I actually did not make to much changes, I just changed the animal climbing pose a bit, cleaned a few distracting branches and added some aesthetic elements.
You can see all my Wolverine designs and order here
Coastal wolf image I captured in BC, Canada.
Habitat shot of Coastal British Columbia, Canada.
The jewelry design inspired by my visit to coastal British Columbia, I still haven’t captured my dream shot of a coastal Wolf and I will try again in the future, but if I ever get my dream Coastal Wolf photo it may look a lot like the jewelry I designed :)
You can see all my Wolf designs and order here
This photo was taken many years ago when I just started practicing Wildlife photography and went on a safari trip to Tanzania.
And, yes I know it’s not a great Photo (to say the least…) but it reminded me of an exciting moment when a a Lioness walked towards me in the open African savannah with her cubs following.
It inspired me to design a jewelry in a way I would love to capture these magnificent animals in the mind of the more experienced photographer I’m today.
I called this design “African sunset”.
The principles that guide my photography and designing are all here: simplicity, story telling, sense of place… and the beauty in jewelry design is that there is no limits to what I can create even if I did not capture the photo I was hoping for while being in the field.
You can see all my Lion designs and order here