Product and still life photography, you might think it is easy and think to yourself, "how hard can it be to take a picture of an object that isn't moving?"
The answer, taking the picture is the easy part. There is a lot of set up for each shot, such as object placement, lighting and other small ascetic details. Sometimes it might be necessary to recreate a product, or certain things like condensation so we can work under studio lights with out a mess being created.
This shot unlike many of the other is a single shot, and not composited. However a lot of editing is done in Photoshop to gain the desired effect and to clean up some imperfections, like scratches and dirt marks. In this shot the condensation was recreated as real condensation isn't as aesthetically pleasing and is harder to work with under hot lights as the product will slowly heat up and the condensation disappear.
Bottle shots can be difficult, as the bottle will reflect the light and cause dark shadows. Bottle shots take time in set up, to insure the lighting is correct. The shot to the left is a single shot, using two lights and reflectors. Here the bottle is placed on a white shiny surface to gain a slight reflection to add some depth to the photo. Selective doge and burning techniques have been used to emphasis logos and the edges if the bottle.
The shot to the left is a three shot composite, using one shot to light the liquid and main part of the bottle. the second to light the edges of try bottle, and the third shot a snooted flash used just to light the label. The shots were then composited in Photoshop to get the final picture.
This shot of a gold watch was by far the most complex shot to pull off.
Before shooting the watch was prepared, the glass was cleaned and the time stopped by pulling out the winding pin. The watch was suspended via two lengths of string, the camera was positioned and the watch moved into the desired position, which must remain constant for this method to work.
This photo is a composite of five images. Four of the images were used to get the whole watch face in focus, this has to be done as the shallow depth of field caused by shooting so close to a small object. The fifth image was taken when the winding pin was pushed back in. The images were then lined up in Photoshop and merged, taking only the in focus and best parts of each image. The watch was then cut out and a new background inserted to gain the desired effect.
