A Lesson In Watch Photography

ft. @edinburghtimepieces

Hey team,

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It’s just taken a little longer to put this article together…partly due to Perth finding himself busy in the real world.

The hope is to make this into a bit of a series, so if there’s anyone who you’d like me to get in touch with a write about next, just let me know!

Hope you enjoy it!

P.s. there are lots more photos in this one :))

What We Can Learn From @edinburghtimepieces About Watch Photography

No one teaches us watch photography, or at least didn’t teach it to those who’ve been on Instagram before the rise of @watchstudies and co.

I used to think that my watch Instagram account was young starting in 2019, and @edinburghtimepieces was an account that had existed forever but fast forward to today and accounts that are younger than mine feel as if they’ve been around forever. 

To introduce you to the subject of today’s discussion, Perth aka @edinburghtimepieces is a watch collector (like most of us) who has been shifting the focus of this collecting ever more towards independents. His claim to fame is buying (and still owning) a Chronometre Bleu before it was hyped. But Journe isn’t all his collection is about, there’s Laurent Ferrier, Urban Jurgensen and I’m sure many more to come.

Watch Photography Is A Journey

His Instagram isn’t just about the watches though. 

The changing style of photos of watches as the subject has captivated an audience. In a world pre-COVID, I remember seeing his profile being full of pocket shots of friends’ watches when they’d meet. 

Then like us all in lockdown the staged shots on our desks became a thing. Some of us moved towards studio lights, but others stuck by the natural light of the windowsill. The shot of a watch parallel to the window on the windowsill with its strap neatly tucked behind it became synonymous with Perth’s watch photography.

Then like us all in lockdown the staged shots on our desks became a thing. Some of us moved towards studio lights, but others stuck by the natural light of the windowsill. The shot of a watch parallel to the window on the windowsill with its strap neatly tucked behind it became synonymous with Perth’s watch photography.

But he quickly moved on.

Towards the end of lockdown, there was a phase of shooting in the evening under warm incandescent light. The high contrast and warm tones lead to visually pleasing images of watches sitting on a bedside table. Often when shooting under warm lights at home the white balance can seem off and the images a bit too green. But Perth’s photos were on the money. 

As ever, the style of photos on his feed moved on. 

He started at Subdial and the watches became more varied. The photos became cleaner and more product-led. We got a new style of photo in the over-the-shoulder shot. The shots were also well-composed and used a mixture of textures or separation between subject and background to please the eye.

Next came something we’d seen before, but in a slightly different way.

We Should Always Keep Learning

We returned to a mixed feed. 

The compositions are varied, using all styles that have come before. The lighting tends to be brighter. Even the shots that have what I would describe as lockdown compositions are executed more cleanly, with the overall image being more exposed and less lost to the shadows. 

We sometimes tend to over analyse things, but @edinburghtimepieces has been on a clear journey. All you need to do is scroll.

Where He’s At Today

And then we arrive at today. The present @edinburghtimepieces.

Perth is now more into photography than ever. Experimenting with street photography and applying that to watch photography, he’s managed to capture watches in a variety of settings in the day-to-day. From an evening in Rome to London Pride, watches have been captured where they belong. On people’s wrists when they’re living their lives.

This new style that has been hinted at a few times has coincided with increasing interest and understanding of cameras in the last few years. Having previously shot Nikon and Leica, he’s tried a Fujifilm GFX 50R and an X-T4 in recent weeks with a variety of lenses. 

This feeds into the broader message of this article. 

What Can We Learn?

In my mind, it’s quite simple.

Every day is a school day. 

By posting a watch photo every day on Instagram, Perth has developed from a person who takes photos of watches and shares them online into a watch photographer and now a street photographer. 

He’s demonstrating that skills are transferable between types of photography and that the style of your watch photography now need not be your style of tomorrow. 

We can all learn more, try more and through persistence can succeed.

😎 Thanks for reading! :))

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