Behind The Scenes Product Photography
So I get a message from a friend of mine and I knew what was coming in the next couple of days before he even asked. He told me that he just bought some more photo gear and he wanted some product shots of them. We've done some before when he bought a Sony A7 and I love any excuse I can get to take photos, so of course I said yes. Last time around we did some more "typical" product shots with very soft flat lighting on a white backdrop using a light box and a couple of lights. Now those are all well and good, but he wanted to go black this time around and we decided to try something different.
From a previous shoot with the Sony A7 and Nex 5r.
When he come over the last time with his Sony A7, I was the one who took all the photos for him. This time I told him to go crazy with however he wanted to shoot it and I wanted to take photos of him taking photos and setting it all up. So this here was his set up. We put up a black muslin backdrop and draped it over a wide table. He wanted some reflections in there as well, so we put down a big piece of glass (from an old coffee table) and used the leverage from the weight of the glass to pull out the wrinkles from the fabric, which actually works really well. Next up was the lights where I set up two Wescott TD6's each with three foot soft boxes. I didn't have anything on hand to flag off the lights from hitting the backdrop, but he didn't seem to care and told me he was going to cut it out anyway.
While he was messing around setting up his gear, I started taking photos. I didn't really have much of an agenda here. I really love seeing behind the scenes (or the making of) style photos and decided to do some here. Interspersed between the photos I took of him setting up everything exactly how he wanted them too look, I got some of his actual setups as well. Of course I took photos of him taking photos of everything as well, which I'm always a fan of anything meta like that.
After he was satisfied with the photos he got, instead of tearing it all down (which felt like a waste of potential), we starting shooting all kinds of random things for fun. I have plenty of little figures and interesting subject matter for this kind of photography, so it wasn't hard to find a subject. He had actually just bought some Amiibos prior to the shoot, which are these really highly detailed figures for a video game called Smash Bros (in case you're not a gamer ;)). At this point, I was taking photos as well and not just of him taking photos. I really love this shot of his Mewtwo Amiibo.
With everything all said and done, and a couple of hours later, I had some fun doing this for no reason other than that it's a passion of mine. I'd love to do more of this and with him just texting me a couple minutes ago about how he bought, yet again, another piece of equipment, I'm sure I will. If you'd like to see more of these kind of behind the scenes kinda stuff, well I'll have more in the future coming soon. Hell, if you'd like to know more about product photography, let me know. I really love the whole process and I've talked about it in the past here, but there's always more to say. Also, if you have any behind the scenes or product photography you'd like to share, then go ahead and post a link to it in the comments below or send me an email and I'll check it out. Have fun and enjoy what you love doing!
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