Product Shoot 3

Aim of this Shoot

This time I wanted to concentrate on photographing ladies perfumes, which are one of the most popular products for advertising, using some of the cosmetics in the house. The inspiration for these photographs has been posers in shop windows and adverts in magazines.

Using the kitchen table, with natural light, and a white mount board for the set. This did mean folding the mount board to create a stage and a backdrop, thereby ruining the board for anything else. The things that I will do !

The Set Up

The diagram for this set up I used is shown below:

As you can see there is really very little working space available, whilst getting the lighting how I wanted it.

Below are photographs of the actual set up:

Choice of Equipment

For this shoot I chose to use my Fujifilm Finepix S7000 camera, because this has a better macro capability, especially when working in such a confined workspace. The S7000 has a built in lens which is the equivalent of a 28 – 210mm lens on a 35mm film camera, but offers both macro mode and super macro mode (the latter allowing focusing down to 25mm).

Because I was working from a fixed location, I used my older Miranda tripod, which is considerably heavier than the lighter Star 75 tripod that I took to Wales, but far more steady.

To avoid camera shake when pressing the shutter release I set the camera to a 2 second self timer, as this camera does not have a remote release capability.

Health and Safety

Working Environment

As I am working in a confined space, and it being a kitchen, it was very important to ensure that all knives and sharp objects had been put away, prior to the start of the shoot. Also, I had to make sure that the floor was dry, with no spillages which could lead to me slipping over.

Electricity

Because I was using existing light, there were no concerns over electric lighting, again the kitchen was clear and the electric appliances were unplugged and out of the way.

Cables

I made sure that there were no cables in the working environment to prevent any tripping style accidents.

Heat

As there was no flash lighting there were no concerns over the heat generated by these. The cooker had not been used for hours, so it was cold to the touch. As there was no direct sunlight there was no noticeable heat there. The water in the kettle was cold as well, although this was down the other end of the kitchen, well away from where I was working.

Chemicals

I had ensured that everything was put away, prior to the start of the shoot. The kitchen tops were clear.

Selecting the Images

Having looked at some advertisements, both in weekend newspaper magazines and in shop window promotions, I had an idea what I was looking to achieve from this photo shoot. Also, like the corkscrew climbers from the second product photo shoot, I wanted to take some of my photographs beyond their normal limits.

Both focus and exposure were very important when selecting the images, but also scope for taking the photographs further.

Below is a contact sheet of the images that were taken during this product photo shoot:

The results of the shoot

Here are some of the finished images: