After practicing for about two weeks, I’ve made the switch to real silver. This is an oval cabochon of polished K2 Granite (yes, from the mountain; yes, the blue spots are natural), wrapped in square and half round sterling silver. I think I’m really getting the hang of this now.
As if I didn’t have enough hobbies to keep me out of trouble.
I’m in Quartzsite, AZ, this January and although I originally had plans to camp out in the desert for the first half of the month, a variety of circumstances convinced me to take a booth at Tyson Wells’ Rock and Gem show. I’m selling (or trying to sell) aerial photos of desert campsites. (More on that in another post.) The east side of the show is full of rock vendors, many of which sell polished cabochons (or “cabs”) and finished jewelry.
In case you’ve never seen the word “findings” used this way, check definition 2 here.
There are several ways to make a rock into a piece of jewelry. The most obvious is to drill a hole in it to fasten a hoop or use some other sort of findings. But a more artistic method is to use wire to wrap the stone securely and add embellishments. This is called wire-wrapping and there are a lot of examples of it here, especially during the rock shows at Tyson Wells and the bigger/better rock show at Desert Gardens nearby.
Last year, my friend Rebecca came to town while I was here and introduced me to her friend John Heusler, a gemologist who has a booth each year at Desert Gardens. John not only cuts and polishes stones, but also makes jewelry. Dorothy Roubik-Ellenbecker, another jewelry maker, works for/with John and shares booth space. She makes beautiful wire-wrapped pieces with intricate wraps that are really a joy to behold.
I got slightly interested in wire-wrapped jewelry last year, but was busy doing a lot of other things. This year, I’m sort of trapped in my booth, especially on weekends when there’s a decent crowd at the show. I’ve been looking at a lot of different wrapped jewelry styles while I’m here and starting getting the idea that maybe making some of these was within my capabilities.
I talked to Dorothy and asked if she’d be interested in teaching me in the evening, when we’re both done booth sitting for the day. She agreed and set a date for Monday evening. I asked about books that might be helpful and she recommended skipping the books and going right to YouTube. So I did.
I discovered that there are a lot of how-to videos on YouTube about wire-wrapped jewelry. Search for yourself. I spent one evening watching about a half dozen of them, mostly by one artist. “Tried-and-Tested Wire-Wrapping Tutorial for Pendants” showed one basic technique and “Quick Wrap! Wire Wrapping Tutorial for Pendants” showed a quicker but less polished technique. Neither of them looked terribly difficult. I went to bed that night eager to get started.
Fortunately, everything I needed was walking distance from my booth. Before I opened that morning, I went shopping for cabs. I bought two nice ones, then realized that since I was just learning, I should start with lesser stones. I found a booth selling some nice but apparently low quality ones for a lot less. I bought ten.
I closed up early (as I often do — seriously, how to people do 9 to 5 unless they’re busy the whole time?) and walked over to the booth where I could find tools and wire. Although the woman working there tried hard to sell me expensive square silver wire, I homed right into the silver-plated copper. I expected to make a lot of mistakes and didn’t want to screw up with expensive wire.
If you look at the two videos I linked to above, you’ll see that the woman who does the tutorials makes a point of saying that she uses regular tools — not special jewelry tools. Sure, you can use an Ace Hardware needle nose pliers and wire cutter to get the job done. But look closely at her work. Those ridges that make needle nose pliers so good for gripping also mark up the soft metal wire she uses to wrap the stones. I didn’t want those ridges on my stones so I bought the right tools.
Her husband was extremely helpful with the tools. They had a big selection with a variety of qualities. One video I watched discussed tools in some detail, so I knew what I needed to get started. He helped me find every one of them, including one that wasn’t displayed that he had to dig through stock to find. (He also recommended another tool, which I passed on but wound up buying the next day.) The tools weren’t expensive — they averaged $5 to $10 each. My initial investment in tools and wire was $35, which I didn’t think was bad.
In case you’re wondering what I bought, here’s a list:
That evening, after dinner, I spread out my tools, pulled out some wire and a large teardrop-shaped labradorite cab, and got to work. I went with the quick wrapping technique in the second video I linked to above, using the 20 gauge silver wire. The biggest challenge was holding the cab and wire in place while I did the wire twisting required to hold it. I was almost surprised when I got the cab to stay in the cage I’d built for it. I then made and positioned swirls on the front of the piece with two of the leftover ends. I admit that I was kind of blown away by the results. The finished piece didn’t have the same polish as John or Dorothy’s work, but it sure wasn’t bad for a first try.
My first finished piece: labradorite wrapped in silver-plated copper.
A closer look at the piece, however, reveals its problems. The biggest problem, in my opinion, were the small burrs I’d created in the wire by rough handling. Simply said, I’d used my flat pliers too aggressively and had damaged the soft metal wire. There were burrs on the decorative bends, especially on the back. This could catch on fine fabrics like silk or nylon, making the piece pretty much unwearable. Unless Dorothy knew a way to fix it, it would never be more than a piece for show.
My wire twists aren’t as neat as they could be, either. Although my spirals are very good with minimal tool marks, the wire joins are clumsy. Surely Dorothy would have tips to fix that, too.
I decided to try the more difficult technique on a small piece of bacon agate that the vendor in the next booth had polished up and given me the day I arrived. I really think that the desire to do something useful with this pretty little stone is what helped fuel my interest in wrapping.
My second piece was a small bacon agate stone gifted to me that I wrapped in copper.
I chose the thinner, 22 gauge copper wire for the job. I thought (rightly, I believe) that the copper wire would go well with the colors in the rock and the small size of the rock meant I needed a thin wire. I followed the instructions in the video to the letter to create the tightly wrapped anchor points that would form the cage around the rock. I was very careful to avoid overworking the metal; this was a piece I wanted to wear and I didn’t want burrs. I purposely made the bail small and loose and added a single swirl to the front. When I was finished, I was very pleased with my work.
I sent photos to a few friends and put them on Twitter. I got some positive feedback, which made me feel good.
I watched a few more videos before I went to bed.
The next morning, I went back to the tool shop and bought three more tools:
My third piece was an oval of some sort of speckled agate wrapped in silver-plated copper.
I chose another cab from my collection of cheap ones: an oval stone that combines a white quartz with black and pink rock specks. (No one seems able to give me the exact name for this stone, but I will keep trying to find out.) Again, I went with the more polished technique that used tightly wrapped anchor points to build the cage. I ended up with spirals that I positioned over the area that had no colored specks. I think it came out good, although I wish I’d made the upper spiral a little larger.
I had a nice elongated piece of rose quartz that was actually two-sided and decided to get fancy. I’d do a bevel mount with a thin wire to weave the bevel and hold the stone. I walked over to the findings booth and bought two more types of wire for my quickly growing collection:
Then I went back to my booth and got to work. I started off well, using the 18 gauge silver-plated copper wire for the edges of the bevel. When I brought the ends up and around, I created a really pretty spiral finish.
Around this time, a woman I’d seen around the show came by my booth. She was on a bicycle with a small, white, curly-haired dog in the front basket. She’d caught sight of me working on the wire wrap as I sat at the table in my booth. She also does wire work. I told her I’d just started and showed her my pieces. (By that time, I’d also bought a small glass-fronted box to hold and display my work.)
We chatted for about 45 minutes. She complemented me on my work, pointing out how nicely I’d used the swirls to fill the white space on the stone with the pink and black speckles. She said that the labradorite piece I’d chosen was not a good one, showed me how to look for features in labradorite, and explained the importance of finding good stones by “cherry picking” them. She told me about a big booth on the other side of the show that had decent quality, inexpensive cabs, as well as where to find more wire in a shop in town. She pointed out that the swirls in one piece could move if they were caught on the wearer’s clothing and gave me a tip about preventing that. She also told me about some inexpensive wire-wrapping classes being held evenings at the QIA building not far away.
While we talked, I tried to work on the piece. The distraction is probably what screwed it up — I accidentally shifted one of the thick wire frames while trying to weave it to the opposite side. My wraps were okay — neither good nor bad — but I’d made one side much smaller than the other, thus screwing up the bevel.
I had to run out to the post office so I closed my booth early. On the way back, I stopped at Hardies Beads and Jewelry in town. They sell mostly beads and jewelry (as you might expect) but do have a good selection of wire-wrapping wire at the back of the store. I wound up spending about $32 on a selection of wires in colors and styles, including an interesting 21 gauge twisted silver wire and various thicknesses of antique copper wire. I now had just about all the wire I’d need to move forward with additional projects.
My fourth piece was an incredibly boring round piece of rose quartz that I dressed up with fancy twisted silver-plated copper wire.
That evening, I tried to fix the bevel piece but failed miserably. I took a few photos of the design (which I won’t share here) so I could remember what I liked about it, then took it apart. I tried two other wraps on that stone and gave up before putting much time into it. But rather than finish the day with a failure, I picked a round rose quartz piece and did a wrap on that using the new twisted silver wire with a narrower wire for the wrap points. The stone was extremely boring — I honestly don’t know why I picked it — but the fancy wire and swirls I added really dressed it up a bit.
So at this point, I have four completed pieces, three of which can be worn.
It’s Saturday morning. Before I open my booth for the day, I’ll stop by that shop with inexpensive cabs and buy a few interesting ones. I feel better qualified to choose them now that I know how I can work the features of the stone into my work.
After I open my booth, I’ll settle down with my little bin of cabs and tools and wire. I’ll pick out a cab and work up another piece. And maybe another after that.
And I’ll likely do a few others on Sunday.
On Monday evening, I’ll bring my collection to Dorothy for her critiquing. I hope she’ll be honest and frank. I also hope she can offer good advice on doing the wraps and twists I find difficult. And teach me how to do bevels!
It might take more than one evening. That’s fine. I’ve told her I’ll pay for her time, although I don’t think she expected that. (She is a professional; she should be compensated when sharing her expertise with a novice.) We’ll both be here at least until January 25, so we have time for a few lessons. I’ll post an update on my progress — if I make any!
It’s kind of like the stars needing to align just the right way to get the best shot.
A few weeks ago, a friend of mine — we’ll call her Jane — shared a photo on Facebook. She’s an amateur photographer turning pro and has begun to sell some of her work. Other work has appeared in various publications. I’ve known Jane since she first took a serious interest in photography and it’s no exaggeration to say that her work has come a very long way since those early days. Many of the photos she shares now are absolutely stunning. Practice makes perfect — or at least helps you get closer to perfect.
Anyway, the photo Jane shared that day was one of those where she caught the light on her subject just right. It was one of her best shots — in my opinion, anyway — and I complemented her. I also added the comment, “It’s all about being in the right place at the right time.”
I don’t remember her exact response, but it was something like, “It’s a little more than that.” I suspect that I’d offended her and I certain didn’t mean to. But I’ll stand by what I said and make an attempt to prove it with an example. I’ll also share some of my philosophy about photography.
The way I see it, a photo can’t be truly great unless the photographer nails three components: subject, composition, and light.
Subject
The subject of the photo is what the photo shows. It should be something beautiful or notable or interesting in some way. Beautiful is pretty straightforward, although I agree that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Notable is what I think about when using photography to document something, for example, the way a bridge cable attaches to a support or the design of a water fountain. (Yeah, I’m sometimes fascinated by silly things like that.) Interesting covers a lot of ground. The pattern of sand after a wave has come by is interesting. Paint peeling off a wall can be interesting, too. It’s part of the photographer’s job to make the subject something that speaks to us in some way, something that makes us stop and look and think. A good photographer can do that with just about any subject using the other two components.
Composition
Composition refers to the way the photographer arranges the subject and its surroundings in the camera’s frame. You may have heard of the Rule of Thirds and it’s a great thing to keep in mind when composing a photograph. But that doesn’t mean a photo can’t be great without following that rule. One of the differences between a good photographer and someone who haphazardly snaps dozens of photos in hopes that one will be good is that a good photograph can figure out where to stand and which lens to use (or how to set a zoom lens) and how to hold the camera to get the best composition more often than not. I should add here that a good photographer does not need to rely on cropping to get the right composition; she should be able to compose right in the camera. (One obvious exception to this rule is when a photo’s desired aspect ratio is unsupported by the camera; for example, a square photo would require cropping.)
Light
Of course, photography absolutely depends on light. Without light, there would be no photography — after all, that’s what the camera’s sensor (or film in the old days) records. What so many amateur photographers don’t understand is that there is good light and bad light. Natural light changes with the weather and time of day. Blue hour or twilight light is, as the name suggests, bluer and dimmer than daylight. Golden hour light tends to be redder and softer, casting longer shadows. Midday light is often harsh and bright, flattening out the scenery. Beyond that, light can be direct or reflected or shadowed — sometimes all in the same composition. A good photographer using natural light — for example a landscape photographer like Jane (and me) — understands the importance of light and makes a special effort to photograph the subject at the best time.
Get all three of these right and the photo will be great. Get two of these right — for example, subject and composition or subject and light — and the photo might be good, but it won’t be great. Get just one right and the photo won’t be very good at all. (We’ve all seen these — think vacation photos uploaded en masse on Facebook.)
The trick is to objectively assess how good you’ve covered each of these components. And that’s a Catch-22 in itself: if you’re not a good photographer, you likely won’t be able to objectively critique your own work. That’s part of how practice makes perfect. Keep trying, keep comparing, keep objectively trying to figure out what could be better in each photograph you make. If you’ve got a good eye and you’re honest with yourself, you’ll get better all the time.
This past weekend, I was up in the Navajo and Hopi Reservations in Northern Arizona. This is an amazing place for landscape photography, with the broad desert scrubland of the Painted Desert punctuated by deep canyons, flat-topped mesas, and towering buttes. The west end of the Navajo Reservation is where red sandstone formations laid down when oceans covered the Four Corners region meet and merge with dark brown lava flows emerging from the multitude of volcanic cones north and east of Flagstaff. That’s where an explorer with a vehicle capable of tackling rugged roads can find the Grand Falls of the Little Colorado River.
Nothing better illustrates the way the two landforms come together at Grand Falls than a satellite image like this one. You can clearly see the reddish rock of the painted desert butt up against the lava flows. One flow forced a bend in the river around it; the falls come right after that bend and then cut into the rock joint, forming the Little Colorado River Gorge. (The Colorado River flows east to west here.) Want to study this for yourself? Use Google Maps to Search for Grand Falls, Leupp, AZ.)
As a subject for photography, the Grand Falls is a crap shoot. I’ve seen the falls completely dry without a single drop of water flowing over the long shelves of rock. While that might be interesting to some folks — geologists come to mind — I personally lack the skills to make it interesting enough to qualify as a great photo. I’ve also seen the falls with water thundering over its entire breadth and mist rising up into the sky. When the water is flowing it’s always reddish brown from sandstone silt it picks up along the way, thus giving it the nickname “chocolate falls” or “chocolate milk falls.”
So timing is vital when visiting the falls. It nearly always runs with spring runoff from the mountains far to the Southeast, so spring time is the best time to visit if you want to see water. It also may run from monsoon rain in July and August — depending on weather, of course. But it was January — too cold for runoff and no monsoon rains. We did, however, have a good rainstorm on Friday night. And my trip to the Hopi Reservation put me just over an hour away. It was worth a try.
I was lucky. The falls were at about half flow: certainly interesting enough for some photos. So I had a good subject.
I spent about an hour shooting from various points along its south shore. I would have crossed the river to shoot from the other side, but there’s no bridge and the crossing looked a lot muddier than I was willing to try, even in my big four-wheel-drive truck. My ability to compose my shots was limited by where I could stand to shoot and the lenses I had with me. Although the photos here are from my phone’s camera, I did have my Nikon and three lenses with me. To fit the entire falls into the shot, I wound up using my 10-24mm zoom lens. This gave me a huge amount of flexibility as far as framing was concerned. I did the best I could and believe I got some interesting compositions that showed off the geology with manmade objects to indicate the scale — after all, Grand Falls is actually taller than Niagara Falls. So I was relatively satisfied with my compositions.
Light was another story. I arrived at midday, which would have been horrible on one of those perfectly clear, blue sky days Arizona gets so often. But it wasn’t a perfect day. It wasn’t even a nice day. I’d driven through fog to get to the falls and the low clouds had lifted only a few thousand feet above me. The light was soft but colorless. The sky was gray. The air felt wet.
Now I know that lots of photographers like the kind of soft light that was all around me that day and I know it’s hard to make a bad landscape photo on a day like that, but it just doesn’t appeal to me. Still, you can’t adjust natural light; you have to take what Mother Nature delivers. So I did what I could. I got a bit excited when, about 30 minutes into my visit, the sun began shining down the canyon past the falls. I watched the soft sunlight creep up towards the falls, hoping it would give me the kind of spotlighting I’d seen downriver. I waited. I was at the right place — or as close to it as I could be — and I was willing to wait a while for the right time.
It didn’t come. The gap in the clouds closed up. Everything returned to the even flat light. I took a few more shots, got back into the truck, and left. The rain started immediately.
Here’s my favorite unedited cell phone shot from the visit. Note the sunlight on the canyon wall at the top left of the photo. I was waiting for that light to get to the falls, but it never did. The Nikon version of this shot shows a wider field of view and the composition is a bit better.
So did I get a great shot of the falls? I don’t think so. I did get a good shot, though. And, for a while, I was satisfied with that.
Until the next day. It rained (and snowed) again overnight and I figured there might be more water going over the falls. I was leaving La Posada in Winslow (where I was staying) and another trip to Grand Falls would only take me an hour or so out of my way. I knew that if I didn’t at least try it, I’d regret it forever. After all, how often do I get up to that area of Arizona with a sturdy vehicle and time on my hands?
There was some fog along the way, but not much. The sky was clearing and blue sky was poking out. There was definitely sunlight but it was filtered through lighter clouds. Soft yet bright light. It was still early in the day — not long after 9 AM — but long past golden hour. (I’m not sure whether golden hour would have been golden anyway; the clouds were still thick around sunrise.) As I drove the last 10 muddy, bumpy roads, plowing through puddles that would swallow a Smart Car, I wondered whether the angle of the sun would cast deep shadows across the falls.
Of course, that’s a whole other aspect of light. The angle of the sun determines where the shadows will be at various times of the day at various times of the year. It was winter, not long after solstice, so the sun was nearly as low in the southern sky as it would be. And it was morning, so it would be low in the southeastern sky. The falls faced southwest, with a canyon wall to the south. Would that canyon wall cast deep shadows at that time of the day? How long was I willing to wait there for the right light?
Turns out, I didn’t have to wait at all. The light was damn near perfect when I arrived. (Perfect as far as I was concerned, anyway.) The sky was an interesting mix of patches of blue with clearing clouds. The falls had about the same amount of water flowing over, which was okay.
This is nearly the same composition, although for this shot I got down into a crouch to include some sunlight-illuminated plants in the foreground. (The crouch also allowed me to block the floating garbage patch at the base of the falls (ick!) with a rock formation.) The light was nice and soft and really added color to the shot. And because it was a soft light, the shadows cast by the wall of the canyon weren’t deep enough to screw up the exposure. This shot is also unedited, from my iPhone.
Is this a great photo? Some people might think so. I’m certainly pleased with it. But I can always do better. I just have to try.
But what it really illustrates is that it’s not enough to be in the right place for a good photo. You also have to be there at the right time. While I might not have been here at the “perfect” time to shoot a “perfect” photo, the timing of my second visit was much better than the timing of the first.
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Related Posts:
I’ve written a bit about this before. Check out the following posts: