All righty then! I promised to throw myself on the sword first.
This is a shot that combines several interests. In addition to the question on photography, the bracelet is different because it is made with a number of techniques, some of which are topics on this forum.
First, photography-- I like a black background, and I like a reflection. The only photo-editing I have done is to go in and remove the dust on the background and lower the reflectivity to a semi-ghost image rather than a 100% reflection (which it was originally, but that is very confusing to the final image). If posting this to my website or to a jury I would also go in and tweak the colors of the silver and play a bit with contrast and brightness levels.
Second, the bracelet- It has a Bisbee boulder turquoise stone set in a sterling silver bracelet that has fused edges, is depletion guilt, and then metal clay accents are added all over.
Thoughts-- I know there are a number of different thoughts on backgrounds. I really like the graduated grays also. My problem with that is getting that durned piece of jewelry or stone to sit correctly against my graduated paper. I would LOVE advice on that. I know I can select the jewelry or stone in PS and then paste it on the graduated background, and so far that is the only way I have come up with to really get the image to come out correct. So................