Yes, a product shot on white. I think this type of shot is possibly the bane of any photographer’s life. There’s no allowance for creativity, and clients ask for it because they see it on their competitors website. And of course, there’s the fact that a number of the large e-commerce sites demand white backgrounds. We could do so much more for the product,
Meet Clarke Carlisle, ex professional footballer and founder of the charity, Foundation for Dual Diagnosis. My brief was to take a few location portraits, which were to be more than the usual corporate headshots. Something a little different.
This is another from Jo and Paul’s wedding, and like the gate image, this was just one of those scenarios you kinda stumble across.
This isn’t a headshot, or even a portrait. It’s actually a product shot. Well, kinda.
Corporate headshot photography needs to say more than “hello!”, because it’s also representative of the business. That can mean including the ambience of the setting, or putting the subject in context.
As products go, these signs had their own set of challenges. The main thing I wanted to preserve, was the three dimensional nature and depth of the acrylic. The numbering was quite pronounced within the plastic, and I wanted to make sure that was obvious to the viewer. What I didn’t want, was any glare or flaring caused by the highly polished perspex.
The above image is a composite of four images, suggested by my assistant Wayne. The original portraits were to be full length, in an environment conducive to an era when a string quartet would have been very much at home.
This was an unusual shoot. Not really the subject, or the lighting etc. More the circumstances than anything.
The technique demonstrated is “short lighting”, where an accent light is used on the far side of the subject’s face, which then has a slimming effect to their features. This wasn’t a portrait session, but a quick demonstration example, shot during a mentoring session.
Product photography for me, seems to attract a lot of domestic and commercial light manufacturers. This tends to be one of the types of products that’s a little more difficult to photograph in-house by an employee with an iPhone or a “nice camera”.
