The nest is maybe 1.5 inches across and deep. It is beautifully attached to the tree with the smallest of organic bits and is quite camouflaged! Such elegance for a perfect fit. The babies are newborn. Nearing sunset cast a stunning backdrop for her.
To keep his distance the photographer used a 100mm Canon macro lens to catch a glimpse difficult to see, especially without scaring her off.
You have a great product and you’ve got your product on white shots, but you need that one great shot-often referred to as a “hero” shot for your Amazon product page. Even with minimal equipment you can maximize your composition to stage your product.
This rustic cabin decor lamp with painted shade and metal art; and small wood carvings against a tongue and groove wood wall serves as the canvas to creating more dramatic photography. This is your stage and these are the basic elements to arrange as you look for the shot you’re after. This isn’t about being quick-it takes time and a lot of shots. Beyond arranging what you see through the lens you’ll change up the shutter speed and focal length for a wide range of variables to find that end shot.
Turns out less is more.
Adding a floral stem to the very foreground adds shadow and depth. The focus is clearly on the cabin lamp with the floral having the bokeh. This is using a very slow shutter speed and wide open aperture (2.8).
Here the focus is reversed-bringing the floral into focus maintaining the same slow shutter speed and aperture. This might work for a backdrop image for marketing text while you still display your product.
The experimenting continues, same lens settings, but rearranging the floral, playing with the light. This, too, can be a nice backdrop drawing the eye to the foreground where you might add your marketing message for a website slider.
Then often you come full circle to include parts of several variations of your composition. This used the same settings, pulled in the wood carvings and feathered the floral to a wider angle for a beautifully balanced and bokehed rustic cabin decor photograph. This gives a lovely staging while highlighting the lamp and giving a vision of how it will look and feeling it creates once brought into the buyer’s home.
Canon Lens EF70-200mm f/2.8L USM
Slow Exposure 0.3 seconds
Rotolight to spot
Business photographers shoot a wide variety during an onsite session. This day shoot included executive portraits and headshots in the morning session. By afternoon we were taking group staff portraits, lifestyle shots for marketing and executives in their offices for more relaxed shots. For front lighting we bounced two Paul Buff Einstein studio flashes and shot with a Canon 24-70mm 2.8 lens. The existing backlight gave a soft polish.
Lifestyle jewelry photos are a great asset to show off your jewelry collection and add “eye candy” to your website. Showing your jewelry worn breathes warmth and personal connection to your gemstone jewelry – rings, bracelets, earrings and necklaces. This session was shot at the jeweler’s store within a two hour window.
These lifestyle images were shot using a Paul C Buff Beauty Dish with a 20% grid using an Einstein studio flash, hand held reflector and a Canon 24-70 mm lens.
We also shot environmental jewelry product pieces in a couple of settings. Creating a stunning bokeh background to set off the sparkling gemstones.
A tight crop (below) brings the ring forward.
This diamond ring (below) was set into a succulent. We manipulated the image with photo editing to keep the focus on the ring. These product images were shot using a Rotolight and a 100mm 2.8 Canon lens.
Staff portraits have many settings now. “Lifestyle” aka “environment” portraits are popular because they are rapidly replacing stock photos for companies-real people in real business settings. These are the people who handle your phone calls. Website visitors can put a face to a voice!
This was shot to enhance the background ambiance creating a bright, fresh image by slowing the shutter speed, requiring the subject to hold still and “hold that smile”. She was delightful to work with and the session went smoothly and quickly.
Lifestyle photography is the answer to original polished photography of your business for your website and print marketing. Your staff is unique to your business. Stock photography used to be the go-to solution for businesses, but finding the same images used on hundreds, or more, websites dilutes your message. Read more about stock versus original photography.
This image was shot using
Paul Buff Einstein
64″ PLM Umbrella
24-70 mm Canon Lens
This photo was shot using Paul Buff Einstein, Beauty Dish and 24-70 mm lens. Great marketing photography with real people on the job.
This staff portrait shot on location using three 580 Speedlites and a small umbrella.
Our client was multi-tasking. Just as he realized he had the product photography images in multiple angles covered, he realized he needed the “pretty” images for his website. Sliders are a popular advertising element on websites currently. To stay ahead of competitors go beyond using image only sliders. We create display ad layouts and created these for specific dimensions saving additional time and expense for our client.
Our model was cooperative – AND cute! The pine-cone was his choice-seems it’s a favorite. For these pet carrier product lifestyle shots we used existing light, Canon Speedlites, the Canon 6D with ND filters with a Canon 24-70mm 2.8 L lens.
Lifestyle photography is helpful with products like carriers to show consumers the product “in action” and also to bring a human feel to the website.
We also shot the full line of pet carriers products. These carriers are collapsible, with multiple handles, straps, openings. We shot 5-6 angles of each carrier on white background.
Nothing like being alone on a rooftop shoot, especially when the client is asking for a few creative shots.
The client hoped to have the Los Angeles skyline as a background to the rooftop system they had installed on this industrial building. In these two shots the skyline seems close, despite how far away it was. The 70-200 mm Canon lens is a long lens which compresses the background-bringing it closer in the images.
Shot with the Canon 35 mm lens you can see how far away the skyline actually was located.
Using the Canon 35 mm 1.4 lens let us grab this creative shot.
This diffuser product begins with a lush reflective foreground and organic items to complement the style of this product. Shooting on a specialized surface gives the refection we were after fading into white. This is achieved by a lot of light precisely directed.
For a dramatic style we pulled in a textured background, a simple brick and keeping our organic theme – a few accents to give this diffuser a new face!
Read more about product styling.