Allthough my main field of action in stock photography is Travel Imagery and Landscapes, I sometimes do some other topics like this one, where I documented the making of a pair of wedding rings by a female goldsmith. I wanted to shoot the whole process from the beginning until the finished rings. The main challenge was that, in order to get the right light mood, I wanted to avoid the use of strobes and only applied available light. Luckily there was a bright window in the room, so I had enough natural light to shoot.

In this particular case the rings beeing made were so-called “Mokume Gane” rings, which are a very special style of rings, because it is an ancient japanese metalworking procedure originally used to make the samurai swords. Basically what the goldsmith does here is to fuse different layers of different coloured precious metals (in this special case Silver and Palladium) together to form a sandwich of alloys, which then is worked by twisting, forging, hammering and heating in such a way, that at the end you get a pattern, which resembles organic wood. This procedure creates at the end a unique patterned ring, which is actually impossible to recreate and so the bearer gets a very special and precious piece of jewelery.

The whole process takes many, many hours of work so I had to take some days to fullfill the whole shooting. It was very interesting to observe how the goldsmith mastered the task applying a lot of knowledge and experience until she was satisfied with the results.

Here are the images:

Goldsmith working on wedding rings "Mokume Gane"-Style - Copyright: Kristian Peetz
Goldsmith working on wedding rings “Mokume Gane”-Style – Copyright: Kristian Peetz
Goldsmith working on wedding rings "Mokume Gane"-Style - Copyright: Kristian Peetz
Goldsmith working on wedding rings “Mokume Gane”-Style – Copyright: Kristian Peetz
Goldsmith working on wedding rings "Mokume Gane"-Style - Copyright: Kristian Peetz
Goldsmith working on wedding rings “Mokume Gane”-Style – Copyright: Kristian Peetz
Goldsmith working on wedding rings "Mokume Gane"-Style - Copyright: Kristian Peetz
Goldsmith working on wedding rings “Mokume Gane”-Style – Copyright: Kristian Peetz
Goldsmith working on wedding rings "Mokume Gane"-Style - Copyright: Kristian Peetz
Goldsmith working on wedding rings “Mokume Gane”-Style – Copyright: Kristian Peetz
Goldsmith working on wedding rings "Mokume Gane"-Style - Copyright: Kristian Peetz
Goldsmith holding wedding rings “Mokume Gane”-Style – Copyright: Kristian Peetz
Goldsmith working on wedding rings "Mokume Gane"-Style - Copyright: Kristian Peetz
Goldsmith holding wedding rings “Mokume Gane”-Style – Copyright: Kristian Peetz
Goldsmith working on wedding rings "Mokume Gane"-Style - Copyright: Kristian Peetz
Goldsmith heating up wedding rings “Mokume Gane”-Style – Copyright: Kristian Peetz
Goldsmith working on wedding rings "Mokume Gane"-Style - Copyright: Kristian Peetz
Goldsmith heating up wedding rings “Mokume Gane”-Style – Copyright: Kristian Peetz
Goldsmith working on wedding rings "Mokume Gane"-Style - Copyright: Kristian Peetz
Goldsmith working on wedding rings  – Copyright: Kristian Peetz
Goldsmith working on wedding rings "Mokume Gane"-Style - Copyright: Kristian Peetz
Tools of a Goldsmith – Copyright: Kristian Peetz
Goldsmith working on wedding rings "Mokume Gane"-Style - Copyright: Kristian Peetz
Goldsmith pollishing wedding rings – Copyright: Kristian Peetz
Finished wedding rings "Mokume Gane"-Style - Copyright: Kristian Peetz
Finished wedding rings “Mokume Gane”-Style – Copyright: Kristian Peetz

 

This is only a portion of the images I took, see more of them here:

GalleryGoldsmith

As usually, you may license them at

or at any of the other Stock Image Agencies I work with.

 

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