If I had to list the top ten things I'm bad at photographing, I'd simply list "necklaces" ten times

For the moment, I'm not even going to embarrass myself by posting a link to any of my attempts, because they're that bad. We're not talking about hair-fine gold chain, but rather about handmade chainmaille pieces in aluminum, copper, stainless steel, and bronze.

My most basic problem is that I don't have a good surface on which to arrange them. Craft stores sell stylized torsos for display of necklaces, but these are black velvet, and the contrast seems to overwhelm my piddly little Nikon CoolPix 5600 (circa 1200 BC). I intend to draft several friends into service as mannequins, but in advance of that undertaking, I'm stuck.

I'm not aiming for art-show quality here, either; I'm simply trying to get usable images for our Etsy site. I can't seem to come up with a good way to display the pieces to showcase their strengths. Instead, I get a muddy blur that appears to have been shot through a jar of pee.

Incidentally, I'm shooting with the aforementioned Nikon mounted on a tripod and using the timer delay so that I don't shake the image when I press the button. I have the pieces on a slab of white marble and I shoot only in natural daylight. I'm not terribly familiar with all of the customizable settings on the camera, but I've followed the suggestions in the manual to no avail.

Any advice or insights will be appreciated.

Well, not quite any advice. If you tell me to get a new camera I will likely make an obscene gesture at you.

Thanks!

one of the stylized black torsos and spray painting it a flesh color or even a neutral gray? Might be worth a try if they don't cost too much. My next idea might be to try finding a manikin neck and shoulder so not only can you get a softer color but get the necklace to lay right. Or make a paper mache' one yourself? Maybe so pictures would allow more ideas. Good luck.

Shiny objects need diffused lighting

This might help

http://www.learnmyshot.com/How-to-photograph-Shiny-Reflective-Objects-Silver-Chrome-Metal

my first thought is that the black torso is confusing the auto-exposure system into over exposing the shot. (The camera wants to turn all that black into a medium gray because it does not know it is supposed to be black.)

When using the white marble you may end up with the opposite problem (everything is under-exposed) since the camera does not know that all that white is supposed to be white, not gray.

If either of these are the case, put the camera into manual exposure mode and experiment from there.

Regardless, showing us one or two examples of the bad results would greatly help with the diagnosis.

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