IED Thesis Project - Jewel Design 2025
I recently had the opportunity to photograph Antonia Lopez's thesis collection, and I was immediately struck by how she bridges her South American tribal heritage with contemporary jewelry design.
The Collection
Antonia crafted pieces in wood, metal, and precious stones, each featuring animal forms rooted in South American tribal culture—a vital part of her personal story. These aren't just decorative objects; they're carriers of ancestral memory translated into wearable art.
My Technical Approach
For this shoot, I chose to combine hard flash lighting with the chromatic versatility of Nanlite Pavotube 30x II LED tubes. The hard flash sculpts every detail—the wood grain, metal reflections, stone textures—while the colored LEDs (electric purple, fire red, cobalt blue, emerald green) create surreal atmospheres around each piece.
The result
The images sit somewhere between documentation and fantasy. Each jewel feels like an artifact from an imagined civilization, existing in its own chromatic universe. The harsh lighting honors the materiality and craftsmanship, while the saturated backgrounds transform them into contemporary icons.
What makes this project work is the coherence between content and form—the intense colors and bold contrasts echo the ceremonial masks and costumes of tribal culture, while the modern technique grounds everything in the present.