Well, my Volleyball client needed a new ad. That’s great. We needed it to be concepted, shot, and produced in one day. A day that had me doing other things as well. Stressful? A little, but I have been at this game long enough to know that it will get done. It always does.

Concept was easy. The software they design for Volleyball coaches currently runs on Palms and handheld devices. A lot of coaches are wanting it to run on a laptop as they are starting to carry laptops to the games for other things and it would be nice to only have one device courtside. Announcing the availability of a PC based software for laptops is the overall message of the ad. It wasn’t meant to overshadow the total message of the two available software packages, but to let those who are currently using the older software that a new tool was now ready.

We always strive to be a little different. Most of the ads that are in the trades are either big time products like Adidas and Nike or small, mom and pop solutions for a niche of court volleyball. I want my ads to look as good as they can and also stand out. Shots of volleyball players taken under less than ideal lighting abounds. We have been going for the still life approach since we started working together in 2002. The ads stand out. They get noticed and the client gets inquiries and sales. Score!

This ad will be running in several trades, but the first deadline was “Volleyball Magazine” for the August edition, I believe. Court Volleyball closely follows the school schedules. The printing is pretty good in that magazine so I can push the gamma a little.

Before we dissect the shot, I want to remind you all of the Missoula, El Paso and Memphis workshops. We still have a few openings and it would be nice to have you there. We are doing a special 1 day intensive workshop on the NIKON CLS system with John Groseclose in August. It will involve studio and location work with single and multiple Nikon strobes. Both manual and iTTL will be covered. Look for more information soon.

Here are a few related articles you may enjoy after reading this post:
Adding some Texture to an image.
Another shot with post production for the same client.
Finding the right mix for blending ambient and strobe.
Shooting Food on Location

Thanks for visiting and tell your friends about the site. And now for the soup-to-nuts shoot of this ad.

Gathering the Props.

After the client and I spoke about the shot, I designed a quick sketch and then headed out the door to get the props. First stop was Home Depot for a pair of shelves to use as a background. They were out of the size I needed (?) so I decided to use the pair I had at the studio. They were in pretty good shape, and I could fix any small problems in post. I needed only a small amount of surface for the foreground, so finding a clean spot should be OK.

Then off to Sports Authority for the Volleyball props. Very important to make sure that they are for court volleyball, not sand or beach volleyball. Different ball, different accessories. And very important for the client’s message. The software is for court volleyball and it is targeted to court volleyball coaches that would see the problems instantly.

I have done a few shots for these guys before and I know what they want. A closeup shot with places for a headline and type. We don’t want to look like all the other folks in the Volleyball magazines. We like a more detailed and idiomatic approach.

The final piece was the laptop. The point of this ad is that the software is now running on laptop computers. Previous versions are for Palm and handheld devices. We needed the laptop to be very visible, so I decided to use my rather new Toshiba and cleaned it up nicely.

Setting the props initially.

The angles had to drive the viewer to the center of the shot to the “Power of Two” and to let the laptop and volleyball be important items for the composition. I like angles. I like convergences.

I placed the items to focus the eyes and then started placing the additional items all pointing toward the back of the image and the volleyball. I am not placing for perfection here, I just want to get an idea of what the things will do when being next to each other.

Setting the Light.

Bringing in the main light is next. I haven’t fully set up the shot yet. I wait until the light is in the position I want before finishing the design.

A strip light with a Norman head at 400WS is set at a slight angle toward camera and slightly behind the set. I needed the surface of the light to be visible in the laptop top… providing a definite liquid specular and shape to the laptop and the water bottle. Using a boom gives me much more flexibility for the set. NOTE: get a boom. Get two of them actually.

I placed the light in the center horizontally, and then looked carefully at the way the light fell on and was reflected by the laptop and volleyball. I made a few changes to the setup and then started to make angles for the shot with a handheld camera. I was using a 20MM lens for its view and convergence.

Using a camera stand or tripod.

After determining the angle of the shot that made the most sense to me, I got my camera stand in position. I like using a camera stand in the studio versus a tripod. I trip over tripod legs and that will kill the shot I had worked so hard to position. I still trip over camera stands, but with a camera stand it kills the toes and leaves the camera in position. Priorities.

I also love the little tray for keeping all the stuff I use to shoot with on the platform right next to me. When I am shooting tethered I can attach a laptop to it as well. This time I am not shooting tethered because the laptop I am shooting is the one I usually shoot into. I could have moved one of the Macs over, but time was a consideration.

Lighting Position

You can see the camera stand and the light as they relate to each other in this shot. Note the angle of the light and how far back on the set it actually is. I like using a strip light for these kinds of shots as it has a wonderful fast fall off behind the set.

I keep my power pack in a close proximity and the cords are out of the way. The cleaner you keep the floor around the set, the better it is for the shoot. Having to move stuff around all the time while trying to concentrate on the shot becomes a distraction. Keep the floor area clean. Keep the cords out of the way and tape them to the floor if there is going to be traffic in the area.

The initial shot.

This is the shot I got when I got the camera into position. There are many challenges that need to be met on this initial exposure. The contrast is too great, and the shadows are too deep. The ball is too dark and there is no reflection on the front of the computer so it completely dies. There is a loss of any kind of definition on the side of the water bottle.

This is not unexpected on the initial shot. In film days this would be Polaroid one. In digital it is sort of a sketching thing.

Adding Fill and Reflective Cards.

I added two white pieces of fome core on both sides of the set. These cards are not set randomly, but rather they are angled to provide fill AND reflection. The reflection is the priority as there will be naturally some fill there as well. I needed to get something down the side of the water bottle, and on the front of the computer.

Having a couple of stands or small booms to clamp your cards on is important. You don’t want them to twist away after working a reflection angle for a half hour.

The Set Shot From Behind.

Here is the set from behind showing the ball and the holder that kept it in place. You can also see how the cards are in close to the camera as well as the way the light is angled toward the camera.

On the left on this shot is the edge of a grid spot aimed at the edge of the set. This is giving me a little texture on the knee pads and a slight glow on the side of the ball. A little splashed behind the ball and that added a little bit of cool back light.

I also liked the way the light spilled a bit over onto the front of the set, giving some dimension to a dull part of the image. This little part really added something to the shot.

The Effect of the Fill Cards.

There is a huge difference in the shot now. The cards are doing their jobs adding speculars on the front of the computer as well as the cord and the whistle side. This little bit of light adds some touches that makes the shot live a little. At this point I have decided to shoot this image.

You can see the dramatic difference in the images as we added the reflective cards. I keep all kinds of sizes on hand. Fome core and white boards as well as silver sided and gold sided shiny boards. Even little scraps of boards are kept to use as fill for tiny objects.

Adjustment to the shot and Photoshop Notes

After deciding the shot, I pulled the card and loaded it up on one of the desktops in the studio to look at it closely before committing the image. I made mental notes and also printed it out to mark it up. Remember that I usually shoot tethered, so I simply convert the shot into Photoshop to review on the laptop.

You can see some of my notes here. I need to open the highlights a little, fix some problems on the background, adjust the lighting on the ball and then make sure the light was even across the laptop. I needed to make sure the shot was lit with the right exposure so I also bracketed my images… from f-22 to f-11. Yes, I knew that f-11 would be too bright on most parts, but if I needed a lighter section of the dark areas, I could always pull it from the lighter images. I didn’t have to do that, but it is always a good idea to have something like that if needed.

Final Shot as produced from the camera

Finished Shot after Photoshop

Here is the final background image. I added the screen from a screenshot as I don’t have the volleyball software running on my machine. I took the screenshot and manipulated it to fit the screen then took the opacity down to 80%. Some usual Photoshop post production work to get a better contrast and some edge darkening.

Thanks for going along for the ride. Shooting images for advertising can be very exciting, but attention to detail can make the difference.

See you next time.

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This is a cover shot that we did for the fragrance company. We wanted a larger space and a more natural looking scene for the cover so we sought out a warm environment. Our AD found a beautiful home that fit the bill.

I knew the item that I would be shooting was small, and knowing that the idea was for a natural looking space, I didn’t need the big guns, I took a small, traveling kit we had at the studio and was off.

The space was a very pretty, large living room with 18′ of north light coming through floor to ceiling louvered windows. The room was simply awash in gorgeous, ambient light.

Before I get started, apologies for slow posting… I have been crazywickedbusy… and working on a book for final publication (although private) is taking every spare minute. I would like to thank SmugMug Professional for coming on as a sponsor. Every workshop attendee for the rest of the year will receive a free one year Pro Account at SmugMug. We also welcome Midwest Photo Exchange to the LE family. A big shout out to BorrowLenses.com and MightyImaging.com for their continued support.

Upcoming workshops are Atlanta and Mexico. I have openings for a few at both. The lineup for the summer is looking great. All attendees receive the workbook, a new DVD for the workshop attendees only, a copy of my book on PDF, the SmugMugPro account and more. We are currently doing weekly webcasts on New Media Marketing. As soon as we have the bugs worked out, that free weekly workshop will be available to all workshop attendees.

Well, let’s go on and take a look at how simple tools can be used to make a natural looking still life.

This is the room as we entered it:

I will often pull the camera out and simply shoot in either Aperture Priority, or take a reading and shoot in manual to get a feeling of how the light is falling within the scene. This is very important when I want the ambient light to be included in the shot. Here you can see how it is falling across the background.

I made the choice to obviously keep the light at the same angle on the glassware. But as you can see in the shot above, there is no finesse to the light falling on the glass vase.

Bringing in a small softbox with a monolight at very little power added both, the rim light of the reeds and the large, white shape on the vase. I kept the light in as close as I could to give the larger shape. Knowing what the ambient was able to produce meant that I had to match it with the box.

We wanted very little depth of field, so I knew I would be shooting as wide open as possible. Using the 20-35mm 2.8 L Canon at 20mm gave me a very sharp foreground and some softened background textures. Getting in close to the subject fills the frame, and adds some more softness to the background.

Coni, the AD, wanted the light from the lamp to be included in the image, so that was a parameter that helped me define the shot as well. We had to move a lot of furniture around to get the shot we wanted. The background can be very distracting if there are gaping holes or something that stands out too much. The shot looks natural in the background because we set the background to the shot – moving things in at various angles till it looked good from camera. They may look askew in the real world… I only care about what they look like through the viewfinder.

Here are a few shots that we did as we were setting up the shot.

The glassware was looking better, and we had some nice color and light in the background. But the far side of the glassware – that side away from the light – was simply dying. I had Alisha, the client, holding a white card to the camera right side, and way back behind the glassware to add the little highlight you see on the right side of the vase. This adds a separation edge and also looks natural. The reason I had her hold it way back was to create a very small highlight, not a wide stripe that bringing it closer to camera would provide. Keeping the lamp in the shot also added a little warmth from the tungsten and the red lampshade.

We also decided that a little bit of flare from the side would create a more natural look. We shot it with both a little flare and with no flare. Blocking the lens from the light makes the shot very sharp, but the flare adds a little warmth to it.

You can see the setup in this shoot shot that Coni did. Here we are checking the light and the highlight placement to get the look to the glassware we want.

Here is the setup shot. You can see the small softbox, boomed in from the left, and the tethered computer showing what we are doing instantly and keeping the client and AD informed of what we are doing. These shots require placement of typography, and sometimes other considerations. The Art Director knew exactly where she wanted her negative space for adding the copy and headlines for the cover. The tethered shooting gave her a lot of confidence that we were shooting the shot she needed.

The final shot, sans headline and type.

Thanks for coming by. I will be making more updates in the following weeks – I promise.

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Recently I had the pleasure of working with Coni of Glacier Design and her client, Alicia on a big catalog project. It was to be a couple of dozen shots. Most are what I would call a “drop and pop,” or simple product shot. Well, of course nothing is as simple as one thinks it will be. And that challenge is met so much easier when there is some planning and preparation in effect. And that Alicia and Coni had in spades.

We knew it would be a hectic couple of days and we were pushing against a printing deadline. Alicia came with an SUV full of boxes and bag and props. We set up a few tables in on area of the studio and then placed the items in a shoot order. Coni had set a shot list so nothing would be misses so we organized the product in a fashion that would allow us to get and stage the products in some sort of order.

The product is potpourri, scent bottles, gift boxes and reeds. Most of this is pretty simple, but some of the boxes had a cellophane type material over them and that created a bit of a heartburn when trying to kill the reflection, or at least smooth it out a bit, while still maintaining light to the front of the box.

Before we take a look at this shoot, I want to welcome a new sponsor to the LE Site and the Workshops. SmugMug Pro is now a sponsor of the workshops and every attendee will get a one year membership in the SmugMug Pro account. This allows hi res images, hi def video and includes a shopping cart for selling the images you shoot. I am so pleased with their support and even more excited about seeing all the attendees getting a well designed web page with a shopping cart. And we also want to shout out to my other sponsors, BorrowLenses. com and Mighty Imaging. Thanks guys.

Also to remind everyone that the Kansas City workshop is full as is the Dallas and Washington DC workshops. I am hoping to see some of you in Mexico. At this point we only have three openings for Mexico. And don’t worry about the news, we are heading to Rocky Point and it is pretty calm there. Missoula Montana will be a lot of fun and we are thinking about adding a day to that for those who want to miss a day of work and shoot environmental portraits with me.

Let’s get on to the catalog shoot.

We started out with a shoot list and a ton of product. Some of the images needed to be shot on white seamless and some with a more ‘set’ look to them. We chose to shoot the white background stuff first. And there was a reason for that. The drop and pop stuff had to match existing work, so I looked at the catalog they had shot previously and decided on the lighting that would match.

It was also imperative that the light not change drastically between images. These were inserts, headers and full page shots. They should match for this area of the catalog, so we wanted to create something that would be easy to switch between the drop and pops and the still life work.

I took a strip light and placed it over the set and slightly behind the product shoot area. Slightly… like a few inches. I tilted it a bit forward so we could get just a little bit of light to fill the cards in that I knew I would need. This kind of work demands a lot of fill cards.

I also wanted to have a little ‘pop’ from the rear so I added a grid-spot on a medium Norman reflector. I took it behind the set just a little bit and aimed it at the center point of the product. I set this backlight to be 1/2 stop brighter than the main light. This would give me an ‘edge’ to the shots without adding too much of a ‘rim’ look.

Here is the set I used for these shots:

This is the shot diagram for the still life shoots. The drop and pop are minus the background light. The light facing back was to create a little drama behind the shots and not have the background be so ‘flat’.

Our first shot is one we will look at is a potpourri shot. The background was one that Alicia wanted to have a natural, tropical look. While she built it, I worked on the exposure and fill card variations for the glass. Alicia then carefully built the potpourri to make it show as effectively as possible and I did a few last tests. We then added the glass items and checked to see that there wasn’t any strange reflections that would give us trouble later. Lastly we added the candle. Alicia lit the candle only as we were ready to shoot it.

I should note that for these kind of shots, I usually use a tethered approach, shooting straight into the computer. This lets me tweak the looks and also lets me share with the art director and client the EXACT the shot as it comes out of the camera.

The shot below shows how the background has a nice clean look to it because of the small backlight. The gradient actually brings the eye back to the product itself. In this specific shot I moved the backlight to be a little off center so it wouldn’t have that ‘studio product’ look to it. There are cards in front and to the camera left side keeping the fill in check and when you look at the potpourri, you will see a nice highlight on the edges from the backlight Grid-spot.

The image below shows the way glassware holds up with the lighting. The backlight gives a sparkle to it, and the subtle backlight from the grid-spot on the reeds shows how nice a little extra touch to the lighting can render the image. There is a sense of shape to the reeds and and the liquid looks almost sensual. The fill cards surrounding the set keep the shadows at bay and also add a bit of highlight themselves.

This final shot above shows the boxes and the items for a long thin shot at the top of a catalog page. There are carefully placed cards all around the set to provide a nice smooth transition from the lighted sides to the shadow sides. As well, they provide a smooth surface to be reflected back from the product. This pops the color on the boxes as well as keeping the gold printing nice and shiny.

These shots are always a little tricky so be so very careful in the placement of the items. The angle of the boxes have to seem natural, but still show the items as they are meant to be seen. The labels must be straight, the edges of the boxes cannot be damaged, and if they don’t fit exactly tight, use double edged tape to keep them tightly fitted closed.

We lit the candle at the end of the setup phase and I used a long, 2 second exposure to get the candle to look lit. Once the item was focused, we killed the lights, tripped the shutter and waited for the shutter to close before I turned the modeling lights back on. We had to make sure that the candle wasn’t blowing all over the place and we also needed to make sure that the pool of wax wasn’t too much.

Here are two set shots to show the lighting in the real world, so to speak.

For fun, I will share this fun image I posted on Flickr. You can get an idea of the controlled chaos that happens when there are so many ‘moving parts.’ You can see the camera stand I use and the tethered computer and lighting.

EDIT: Here is a graphic with some pages showing the use of the pics I did.

An apology to those who follow this blog. We have been crazy busy lately and doing some reconfiguring after losing the laptop a few weeks ago. And even though everything was indeed backed up, there are still a lot of business things that were an added challenge due to the loss.

But let me tell you that we have a lot of good things coming up.

I promise.

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A simple product shot can sometimes present a lot of challenges for the photographer not used to thinking about reflected specular lighting. In this shot, the product is practically lit with specular reflection. There is very little direct light on the Hard Drive case, rather we have built an environment where the unit is simply reflecting all that surrounds it with our control to make it look fantastic.

This is our newest Tech Sheet and it is three pages long. I have put it into a PDF for printing and working with. I hope anyone who would like to work on something like this shot finds it helpful.

You will need a scrim and boom for your speedlight or a softbox for your strobe. I used a strip light of 48 x 18, but you can use a smaller one for similar results. Four small sheets of fome core will also be of use, minimum 24 x 18 or a little larger. I find that stands, clamps, and booms come in to great use when working with the finesse that a shot like this requires. A second light for the background can be added for more interest.

You should have at least 4 feet behind your product so that the spray light can be used without having it bleed back on the product.

Before we jump on over, I am glad to announce that the workshops for the first part of next year are being set up now. You can see the list here. If you are thinking about hosting one, let me know as soon as possible so we can get it set up. There is also a new post at LE Magazine on Shooting For Free, a subject that David Hobby mentioned recently in a blog post and got a lot of people talking pro and con. My take here.

Let’s look at the item itself. It has a brushed aluminum front panel that is a full curve facing camera, an aluminum base and a flat side panel with etched logo. Download printable Tech Sheet here (PDF).

Our Tech Sheet this week is three pages in PDF form.

Download Here

We of course want to see all of that, and that means lighting control. You will see the well rounded front panel, an side panel that needs to be evenly lit and the etched logo that should be visible in our final shot. I want a cleanly let front panel, some edge lights for drama and separation and the unit should look like it is important… and worth the hundred bucks or so it would cost.

While this is a fairly easy shot to do, it does require careful placement of light and fill/reflector cards to provide smooth, even light that has dimension to it. We want to see the curves as they are one of the defining elements of this design, and curves mean a wide reaching reflection.

Placement in the frame is also very important and we want to make the item the “hero” of this ad or
catalog shot. One way to do that is to shoot slightly “up” at the item creating a “towering” presence. It is also important in this shot that we don’t show the table that it is sitting on as that would make it more mundane and it would appear as a hard drive sitting on a table… boring.

Below you can see how important the placement of the overhead light is. We want it to be subtle and not overpowering in the final shot. We will be using the natural reflectiveness of the item to build the light around.

Here are some shots of the vertical alignment of the light. The camera aimed at an oblique angle to the table and the hard drive sitting at a slight angle in order to show depth. I am using a wide angle lens here to help create a little drama in the shot. In the end, though, I was zoomed out a bit as the wide angle was too much.

You can see the basic setup. We have a large fill card in front of the unit and right up next to the camera lens. The cards you see on the table are creating the highlights on the sides of the unit. They are angled to slightly catch the light from the strip light above and become bright enough to be reflected by the units curves and materials right back into the lens… soft, wide, liquid specular highlights.

Putting a fill card angled to reflect light back to the side of the unit added a clean wide specular down the side, also showing the logo as an embossed highlight. That was easy.

We added a “spray” light to the background by placing a head with a small parabolic reflector directly opposite the lens and right against the wall… in this case it is only about 4” from the wall. I stand and sight the lens to see the light.

This spray can be controlled by moving it closer to the wall, changing the power settings or putting some type of diffusion over the head.

I tried some long exposures to find the one that would let the light of the unit shine and we went with that exposure for shutterspeed, and the flash exposure for f-stop. In this shot it was f-11 at ISO 100 at 1 second. The 1 second exposure was for the light to burn in… sometimes called dragging the shutter.

Final setup shows the added fill card on camera right. It took the dark area to the right of the previous image front plate and cancelled it out with a soft reflected highlight that really offset the bright highlight on the rim of the front plate. Looking carefully at the shots below you can see the differences.

We decided a blue gel would nicely set off the blue light inside the unit so a double set of blue gels were added to the front of the spray light and clamped in place. The modeling light was then turned off to prevent heat build up in the reflector.

The back light was tuned a bit by moving it in and away from the wall. I checked how it looked by shooting without the top light on. That gave me a silhouette against the background. Once I got it in the correct final position I made sure the unit was clean and made my exposures, bracketing by third stops. I always shoot in RAW by the way.

On the Tech Sheet you will find some information on the Photoshop work we did.

I hope you enjoyed this high tech product shot using only one light for the product itself. Here is one last shot of the product as it was finished.

Download printable Tech Sheet here (PDF).

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My client called and needed a job turned around right away. Her client needed their entire menu shot for some collateral and web materials and the previous shooter had not been able to do what they needed.

The images had to be attractive enough for menu use, arty enough for the web and collateral and still stay within budget. Well, yeah… there’s always that budget thing. The twist was that we had to do two shots of each dish… one for the menu and one for a more ‘artistic’ collateral piece.

Because of the nature of the food, it was best to do it at one of their locations and luckily enough it was near where I live. I took an afternoon and scouted the store. I wanted to check surfaces since they insisted on using their table surfaces for the shoot. In this case there were several tables that were nearly pristine.

There was also a huge window near a corner of the restaurant that faced east. This window was under a walking area that was covered. At 9 pm the light would stop flowing into the restaurant and we would have soft window light for most of the day.

I decided that we would do the two setups at the restaurant. One for the ‘menu’ type shots and one for the more ‘artsy’ shots as they were described to me.

Gear:
Norman Pack
2 heads
Boom
3 stands
Small softbox
Assorted reflectors
Assorted mirrors
Small sheets of shiny white paper (for cutting into small reflectors)
Gaffer’s tape
Camera Bag
Lighting Bag
Tripod

We began by setting up the small softbox on the boom and positioning it above and slightly behind the table where the food would be setup. I made sure it was close enough to the kitchen area so we could be quick in getting those shots styled. (You can see a diagram of the light setups farther down the page.

I added a medium sized white fill card to the immediate left of the shot. I let the right side go without any fill so there would be some direction to the light. Even if it was a small amount of fall off, it would let the ingredients have a dimension to them as well as keeping the bowl with a slightly darker side.

Below is a shot we did for the “menu” part of the shoot. It is a dish with some of the ingredients surrounding it for a still life look.

The softbox gives a soft, slightly back light. In front of the set I placed a small white reflector to keep the shadows at bay. It is about 10 inches in front of the set and below camera. Without that reflector, the shadows would be extremely contrasty toward the front.

By keeping the light on a boom, it was also easy for two people to style the images. We had to do the whole menu in one and a half days, so there wasn’t a lot of time.

We placed the bowl in position and then brought the ingredients all around it. I had a staging area for the ingredients and would have the manager get the things needed for each dish ready before it came out. We then were able to move that small amount of things on to the set. I styled it with a classical approach of ‘hero’ and supporters.

Even though I had a tripod for the shoot, I ended up shooting hand held. It was very important to end up with the bowls at about the same perspective and size and that meant moving quickly. After the first couple of shots, I put the tripod away.

For the more artistic of the shots we moved the set over to a table by the window. The tables here had rounded ends, so that gave me some added tonality. Below is the same dish in the second location.

Here I used an 80-200MM L lens at wide open (and long) to shorten the depth of field and make the image more ‘fresh.’ I was using the ambient light from the window and the shutter speed was a little low for my taste. I broke out the tripod for these shots. I had enough room to move the camera around quickly on the tripod so it worked out pretty well. We eventually did some considerable work in post on these… adding text and such.

Coming from a low angle I could get some back light and sculpt the food. I also tilted the horizon and and added fill cards for the contrast. Opening the shadows was important, but it couldn’t be so bright as to diminish the back light thing I had going on. I tried a speedlight for fill, but even at a low power and bounced, it looked too bright.

We settled on two 2×2 white fome core boards held by clamps. One on each side of the dish. You can see them on the lime as it is reflecting the light sources. The boards were easy to whisk away as we moved into each shot.

Here is a lighting diagram for the shoot:

I kept the shoot running smoothly because of the pre-planning that went into it. Scouting and making sure that we could have the run of that part of the restaurant for a couple of days let the manager know that we were cognizant of his need to keep the restaurant open and doing business.

Having the ingredients for each shot one shoot ahead made the styling go quickly as we weren’t waiting for some special ingredient… it was already there.

Here is another shot from the series:

You can see how different the two shots look. One is very traditional, sort of a menu or recipe look to it. And the other has a more fresh, magazine or editorial feel to it. The heavy back light and angled horizon give it a bit of whimsy.

It is important that the food look appetizing at all times. Letting pasta sit for too long makes it look rubbery, and we were constantly rotating the veggies and other items into the fridge so they would not look old and spoiled. In the end a lot of food was prepared and we gave it to customers or ate it ourselves… not wanting to waste it.

I shot a few shots tethered to get the exposures correct and nail them down. After that initial testing, I went to shooting on the cards. I didn’t want the AD to start picking apart every shot and slowing us down. I knew we had what we needed and would of course ‘chimp’ it to make sure.

Shooting food is a lot of fun. It is demanding and can be crazy fast, but it can also be very rewarding when the images make the chef smile and people want to buy the product.

I hope you enjoyed this little tutorial. We are full of stuff for July so drop in again soon.

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Client expectations:
1. Shoot 30 earrings (silver, gold, translucent and opaque stones).
2. Earring images must be on a pure white background.
3. Full earring must be visible, including ear hook/stud/etc.
4. Some earrings dangle, and must appear to be hanging.
5. No cast shadows on the background.
6. Avoid Photoshop (Lightroom is OK)


From Josh:
“I had a table and softbox arranged to give me a well lit place to shoot the jewelry. The softbox offered a very soft, and smooth main light source. Under the softbox, sitting on the table was a white, translucent plastic bin (the open end facing the camera). Across the open end of the bin, I stretched plastic wrap. I stuck the earrings through the plastic wrap, and even though there were a lot of stretch marks, holes, and rips, none of them showed up in the photo. No post processing needed. Then I draped a white sheet over the whole thing to make a light tent, and shot all 30 pieces the same way.

As you can see, the whole piece is visible and they look like they are hanging The pure white background is clean and without shadow. Laying them on a surface would have resulted in tiny shadows and mounting them from behind with rod or stick would have been a painstaking long approach. And with some of these items being so tiny, it would have been almost impossible to hide a stick in the shots. Additionally, by using plastic wrap instead of a fishing line, the pieces were held steady, with no swinging, so there were no problems with blur from motion or focus errors.”

At Lighting Essentials we love it when a clever approach comes up and is well executed. Thanks Josh. You can visit Josh at his web site: Joshua Targownik | www.targophoto.com
Here’s another look at how well this worked for Josh… and his client. I like the clean look of the jewels as well as the subtle highlights that give the earrings shape and context. These will look great printed large or small on the web.

Below Josh shares his lighting scheme with you. He is using an IKEA tray to hold the plastic wrap and provide the white background. The larger box gives a nice clean backlight and he is using a speedlight below the box to add just a little kick of light from the opposite direction to make sure the white stays clean. Take a shot at it the next time you need to do some earrings, rings, jewels or other kinds of still life. I can think of lots of uses for this kind of setup. You can see all the shots Josh did for his client here.

NOTE: It is important to note that Josh covered the entire set with a white cloth (sheet or other white material) that is not shown on the diagram. That material was critical in making sure there was light on the front of the jewelry as well. It draped down in front of the jewelry and in front of the camera. Do not forget this critical piece of the setup when you create it for your setups.

Information for today’s photographer. From novice to pro, LE Magazine has it all.

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You can create this with a scrim and lights, a double scrim (two separated by 6 – 10 inches), a softbox or combination softbox / scrim. Just depends on what you want to achieve. I use lots of canned air to clean set, bees wax to affix the jewelry, makup mirrors for adding snaps of light and an assortment of small cut white fill boards.

Here are some shots using the above lighting scheme. There is a lighting diagram at the bottom of the page.

Jewelry Brochure for a Navajo Silversmith:
There are additional small cards added, but the most obvious is the half-circle bracelet with the bevel toward the camera. A white card was positioned to pick up that bevel as it was reflecting a dark studio.

Custom Silver Smith for Western Riders Catalog:
This shot took nearly a half day to set up. The 4×5 is mounted straight down and I stood over it watching my assistant carefully place the buckles on the background – getting them straight in the camera – and then ‘tacking’ them down with a small bit of bees wax. After we were finished placing them we had to bring in fill cards to help keep the convex buckles from reflecting dark studio.

Above and below:
Two shots from an oversized direct mail piece for consumers. Each image was a single page. The designer would add the type to the image in production. Watch the multimedia presentation for a closer look at how they were done. These were both done with the setup in the diagram below. Very painstaking work, but also very much fun.


Here is a quick little multimedia presentation of the jewelry shoots here..
Thanks for visiting Lighting Essentials.

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