How to Photograph Jewellery and Watches for Insurance

What Insurers Actually Use Photographs For

It helps to know what happens to these images, because it tells you what to shoot.

**Proof of ownership.** The first question after a theft is whether you owned the item. A photograph of the piece, ideally being worn, answers it.

**Identification of the specific item.** Not "a gold bracelet" but *that* bracelet, distinguishable from every other. This is why marks, engraving, serial numbers and distinctive wear matter more than a flattering overall shot.

**Condition at the time of loss.** Claims are settled on the item as it was. Documented condition prevents a dispute about pre-existing damage, and prevents an assessor assuming worse.

**Supporting a valuation.** Where a formal valuation exists, photographs tie it to the object. Where none exists, good photographs plus a receipt are often what an assessor works from.

**Recovery.** Police and trade databases use serial numbers and distinctive images. A watch with a photographed serial number can be traced when it surfaces; one without effectively cannot.

Our [valuation and insurance guide](/journal/valuing-and-insuring-metals-and-jewellery-at-home) covers the paperwork side; this is the visual half of the same job.

What You Need (Less Than You Think)

A modern phone camera is entirely adequate. What limits most attempts is lighting and stability, not resolution.

**Essential.** A phone or camera. A plain, neutral background — a sheet of white or mid-grey card, or a plain cloth. Soft, diffuse light. Something to stabilise the camera.

**Very helpful.** A cheap tripod or phone clamp, which solves shake entirely. A jeweller's loupe held over the lens, which turns any phone into a macro camera good enough to read a hallmark. A ruler or a coin to include for scale. A grey card or plain white paper for consistent colour.

**Not needed.** A lightbox, studio flash, or a macro lens. They are nice and they are not what stands between you and a usable record.

**Lighting is the one thing worth getting right.** Direct sunlight and bare bulbs produce hard specular highlights that blow out on polished metal and hide detail. A large north-facing window on an overcast day is close to ideal. Failing that, a lamp bounced off a white wall or diffused through a sheet of paper. Avoid on-camera flash entirely: it produces a single harsh hotspot and flattens everything.

The Shot List, Item by Item

Work through this for every piece. It takes a few minutes each.

**1. Full item, straight on.** The identification shot. Fill the frame, item square to the camera, in focus across the whole piece.

**2. Full item at an angle.** Shows depth, setting height and three-dimensional form.

**3. Reverse.** Backs of settings, clasp mechanisms and gallery work are distinctive and are rarely photographed. This is often the shot that identifies a specific piece.

**4. Every mark, magnified.** Hallmarks, maker's marks, karat stamps, assay marks. Use the loupe-over-lens trick. Shoot several — marks are small and hard to nail in one attempt. Our [hallmarks guide](/journal/international-hallmarks-guide) explains what you are looking at.

**5. Serial numbers.** For watches: between the lugs, on the caseback, on the movement if accessible, and on the papers. For anything with a laboratory report, the inscription on the girdle if there is one.

**6. Stones, close up.** Enough to show cut, colour and any distinctive inclusion. A visible inclusion pattern is effectively a fingerprint.

**7. Any damage or distinctive wear.** Counterintuitive but important: documenting a chip or a worn shank prevents a dispute later and helps identify the piece.

**8. With a scale reference.** A ruler alongside, or a common coin.

**9. Being worn.** One casual photograph of the piece on the wrist or hand. This is unusually persuasive as proof of ownership.

**10. Documents and packaging.** Receipts, valuations, laboratory reports, warranty cards, boxes with their model numbers.

Technique That Fixes the Common Problems

**Everything is blurry.** Stabilise the camera and use the self-timer so pressing the shutter does not shake it. In close-up, depth of field is shallow — focus on the most identifying feature and, if your phone offers it, take several at slightly different distances.

**Metal is blown out white.** Diffuse the light and reduce exposure slightly. Polished metal reflects the whole room, so what you are photographing is really the reflection; changing what surrounds the piece changes the result more than changing camera settings.

**Colour looks wrong.** Shoot everything under one consistent light source rather than mixing daylight and lamplight. Include a piece of white paper in one frame so colour can be corrected later. This matters most for coloured stones, where the whole point is the colour.

**The hallmark will not resolve.** Hold a 10x loupe against the lens and move the phone rather than the loupe. Light the mark from a low angle so the struck impression casts small shadows — flat frontal light makes an engraved mark nearly invisible.

**Dark stones disappear.** Place a white card beneath and behind to bounce light up through the stone.

**Clean the piece first**, gently, and handle it with a cloth. Fingerprints on polished metal are ruthlessly visible and make a record look careless.

What to Record Alongside the Images

Photographs without a written record are half a document. For each item, write down:

- What it is, in plain description: metal, purity, stone types and approximate weights, dimensions, total weight. - Maker or brand, model or reference, and any serial number. - Where and when you bought it, and what you paid. - Any laboratory report number and issuing laboratory. - Date of the most recent professional valuation and the figure. - Repair and alteration history — resizing, restringing, replaced stones. - Where it is normally kept.

A simple spreadsheet is enough, with the photograph filenames referenced against each row so the two halves stay connected.

Name files so they are self-explanatory — `ring-sapphire-18ct-hallmark-01.jpg` rather than `IMG_4821.jpg` — because you will be looking for these under stress.

Keep the original full-resolution files. Do not archive only the compressed versions a messaging app produced; a hallmark that was readable in the original is often unreadable after compression. Tools like [JAlbum](/go/jalbum) are useful for organising and exporting a browsable archive of a large collection.

Storing It So It Survives the Event

The whole exercise fails if the record is destroyed alongside the items, and the two most likely losses — fire and burglary — are exactly the events that take a home computer.

**Keep at least two copies, one off-site.** Cloud storage plus an external drive kept at another address, or with a family member, or in a bank box.

**Keep the documents with the images.** Receipts, valuations and reports scanned into the same archive. At claim time you want one folder, not a search.

**Encrypt it if it is detailed.** An inventory of valuables with a note of where they are kept is a useful document for the wrong person. Use a password-protected archive or an encrypted cloud folder.

**Tell someone it exists.** An executor or family member should know the archive is there and how to reach it. This is the same principle as making sure someone can open the safe, which our [safe setup guide](/journal/how-to-set-up-a-home-safe-for-bullion) covers.

**Diarise a refresh.** New acquisitions photographed on arrival; the whole set reviewed every few years, along with the valuations.

It is an afternoon's work for most collections, and it is the difference between a claim that settles and a conversation about what you can prove.

Frequently Asked Questions