The Very Highest Quality Rings...


Jewellery & Diamond Ring PhotographsClick here to return to the Rings IndexChard 24 Carat Home Page

Green Diamond with Pink Diamond Shoulders
One of Our Better Photographs...
But Far From Great...
One of Our Team of Expert Photographers
One of Our Team of Expert Photographers
Actually a Meerkat at Longleat Safari Park
Image - Daily Telegraph
Jewellery & Diamond Ring Photographs
We design and create beautiful, and high quality diamond rings, and also sell other high quality jewellery. So you might wonder why our photographs are c**p, as another famous jeweller would have said. In most cases, they do not do justice to the products.

A Different Approach
We have never been afraid to do things our own way, and differently from our competitors. While most jewellers, both manufacturers and retailers spend fortunes to make mediocre products look a million dollars, at least in their catalogues, whether printed or online, we realise that for a small business such as ours, we don't have the resources to produce slick and glossy airbrushed images. We prefer to put most of our efforts and resources into producing excellent products.

A Picture May Be Worth 1,000 Words, But It Also Costs £$€ Thousands
The moody shots of top models wearing diamonds in the glossy magazines such as Vogue, and those diamond posters produced by De Beers cost upwards of £10,000 each! That's just for a licence to use the photograph in the agreed ways. If you think this figure sounds like we have gone crazy, please be assured we haven't.
Way back in 1998, when we were building our first website, we asked De Beers for the use of some of their library images of diamonds and diamond jewellery. We received a flat refusal. Firstly, there were already two of their "diamond partners" in our geographical vicinity, and secondly, they did not own the rights to the images outright. One of their very helpful executives of the Diamond Promotion Service explained to us at length about the costs and licensing arrangements of their photographs and images.
To commission a leading world-class photographer cost over £10,000 per day plus expenses. Some top models famously won't get out of bed (or is that into bed?) for less than £10,000. In those days, there was the cost of film to add, although even top photographers now use digital, and anybody who has tried to photograph jewellery knows it is very difficult. Top quality cameras, lenses, and lighting is also expensive.
The top photographers can, and do, dictate license and usage terms for their images, which can exceed the initial daily fee. We could go into more detail, but we think you get the idea.

The Argos Approach
We can understand that Argos and other catalogue stores want their photographs to look great and to enhance their products, but we remember seeing a report some years ago where they were criticised, by the Advertising Standards Authority, if we remember correctly, for making a fairly cheap and nasty diamond ring look like a very high quality one, and we believe they have now had to make their product images more realistic!
It's a source of frustration to us that we make some excellent products, and our photographs make them look more like something from Argos!
We do try to improve our photographic techniques, and we can see a tremendous improvement in our more recent photographs compared with those we were taking years ago, but there is still much room for improvement.

Our Showroom is Consistent
Actually our showroom is pretty consistent with our images. Most jewellers use expensive lighting systems to make all their products gleam and sparkle. In our showroom, we use the worst lighting for selling diamonds, fluorescents. One day, we might get around to upgrading our lighting, but at least our customers can be assured that if it looks good in our showroom, it probably looks even better outside. Bearing this in mind, we might stick with our existing lighting for even longer.

More Honest
At least we can console ourselves that it is more honest to make our excellent jewellery look mediocre than to do it the other way round.

Imagine
The point of this page is to explain that our on-site images understate the quality and beauty of our jewellery. Please try to understand this, and use your imagination. Most of our mail order customers and showroom visitors are very happy with the jewellery they buy from us, and most of our customers become repeat customers, and are happy to recommend us.

Diamond Information

Ring Finger Size Advice - General
Ring Finger Sizes - International Conversion Chart

Order Form - Rings

Order Form - Rings - USA



...at the Lowest Possible Price

32 - 36 Harrowside, Blackpool, Lancashire, FY4 1RJ, England.
Telephone (44) - (0) 1253 - 343081 ; Fax 408058; E-mail:
The URL for our main page is: https://24carat.co.uk
Chard(1964) Ltd