Keeping Product Images Fresh and Clean

This year has continued to bring creative ideas and lots of product photography. 

This project involving both lifestyle and product images required a lot of production and organization. Thanks to our crew: Catherine, Dale, Paula, Tiffany, Molly, Ben! 

We used huge spreadsheets with product descriptions and file naming conventions along with check boxes to keep us on track with the shoot schedule, retouching, clipping paths, renaming files, and release of final files. Client and crew all knew where each image was in the system at any time. Our organizational boards also posted visual examples and verbal descriptions of all of the lifestyle and product shots needed. As a result, everyone got everything shot and retouched on time! 

Our set builder Dale Frommelt, as always, did an outstanding job building our lifestyle sets. While the sets weren't that big, everything was painstakingly
sourced and assembled. Both sets had to have working water faucets and a way to catch the water when flowing. Add a water hose and a bucket
and, voilà, you have functional, "running" water. 

Production boards kept everyone on track.

Dale is always ready for anything.

Beautiful light.

The hose-bucket drain system worked great.

You can do a lot on a small set.

Since this project had a number of lifestyle shots using a hand model, we did a final check of our hand model's hands. 

A few minor adjustments and everything looked good to go.

Model hand check.

Nothing like natural light!

Putting the perfect portion of toothpaste on your toothbrush is harder than you'd think.

Getting the shot framed just right.

How to wash your hands with style.

If it don't show -- don't blow money on it! 

Check out the chrome on this limited edition, handcrafted, David Morris towel rack. 

Here we were only going to see the bottom of the towels so taping them to the wall worked like a charm.

Limited edition towel rack, "David Style."

Not everything is what it seems when you look at the shot from a different direction.

Since this project had a lot of product to shoot in a short time period, we needed more than one set going at the same time. 

Consistency can be an issue if you're not careful. We shot using two sets exactly alike; same lights, soft boxes, cameras and lenses, backgrounds, etc. 

Every variable we could eliminate we did. We were very pleased with how close we were able to match each set.

Two matching product sets.

Sometimes you have to do crazy things to get packaging and contents to cooperate. 

In this case, we cut through the back of the box to properly position 

the product inside and get it to stay in place. 

A fun shoot and great client! 

At the end of the day when you hear the client say, "outstanding photos" and "better than we expected," we consider the project a success. 

Here are some of the final lifestyle photo from the shoot.

  

I love shooting Americana

For years, I have always loved to photograph Americana interiors for fun. 

Hope you enjoy some of my most recent finds. 

There's more than one way to make a bed.

 Recently we were asked by our client, Trapp Candles, to produce a number of images depicting different scent profiles for their new line of products. It's always amazing what goes into producing images. One required a bed set-up . . . and I'm guessing our bed didn't resemble yours at home.

The bed and headboard were a combo of apple boxes and foam core.

Putting the final touches on the Duvet and sheets.

Making sure everything is clean and in perfect position.

Checking the lighting for the final exposure.

This is how I wake up every morning -- steaming hot cup of tea, flowers and a romantic candle. (;-) 

A version of the final photo.

Jet Set photos

When I talk about the "jet set" I'm not talking about a group of people that fly around the world on their jets. I'm referring to a aircraft hanger where I'm photographing a jet.

We've been having fun lately shooting some high-end jets for ads. It's a blast to have some out-of-the-ordinary challenges that we don't normally have. 

The final shot had a couple of business executives sitting in the seats using iPads. I'll have to show the ad later on, but for now, I think the interior came out looking nice.

It was great making this shot look like we were flying on a bright sunny day with a few clouds, when in reality, we were in a poorly lit aircraft hanger.

Photography is a trip!

Problem solving is what we do.

We were recently challenged to photograph an ad campaign for a client where we needed to shoot the same product on location and in the studio.  The final image is a split view of the same product in to different environments at the same exact focal length and position.

Our solution was to have our friends at Machine Head build us a camera bracket that would affix the product in the same position in front of the camera no matter where we were shooting.  This made post production a lot easier.

Final image

Shooting product in water

Testing out our camera bracket

Some fun out takes of us playing around. 

Look mom no hands

Background in motion

A fun way to cut your pizza

Sometimes my job is just too fun.  This project was to show a beautiful pizza with a cheese pull.  However, this pizza product had some challenges.   The product is designed to be cooked from a frozen state.  If you let it thaw, cut the pizza crust, and re-freeze, the crust doesn't perform as it is designed to.  The solution was to cut the slice out of the pizza crust while it was still frozen.  We tried to do it with a knife but the crust was so cold it would shatter.  The solution, power tools!  I got my trusty power saw out and started cutting.  Guess what, it worked like a charm, and it was a blast.  How often do you get to cut your pizza with a power saw?

Some were a little skeptical!  (:-)

No, I didn't cut my fingers off or cut a big gash in the countertop.

As you can see, we were able to make a great slice in the frozen pizza crust.  Let the pizza styling begin!

Collaboration

Recently we had the privilege to work on a major campaign for one of the nations largest tire and automotive retail companies which owns over eight nation chain brands all around the USA.

We were hired to bring a more real "Americana" ( not staged ) look and feel to their Brands.  

This was a major project with 10 crew members, months of planning and location scouting.

We often collaborated with hair and make-up stylist, food stylist, etc on projects but in today's ever changing advertising market place we are now collaborating with an even broader group of talent.  

Today, we are collaborating with film companies, production companies, producers, and other photographers.  Yes, I said it, other photographers!  No one photographer can be all things to all clients.  

We wanted to provide our client with the best possible outcome so on this project we collaborated with our friend James Meierotto to bring the right look and feel for this project.  In our opinion it was a win-win for everyone involved.  The client agreed and was thrilled with the results.  We are alway's thrilled to collaborate on projects to provide our clients with the results they need.

This was a fast paced project with lots of people and equipment.  We were shooting with 3 cameras on this project.

The first shot of any project always take a little time to make sure everyone is on the same page.

You don't always see hair and make-up being done in a tire and automotive store!

A little shade anyone?

Photo's are look'n good!

Part of the process was to make sure everything we shot was authentic and all the equipment we operated was being used correctly. 

Brian Mangan, our production coordinator did an awesome job mapping out the shoot schedule!!!!

Chris, one of our photo assistants down loading some images on the fly.

Wardrobe

A little make-up anyone?

So glad we were near a tire store!!!!

Caught ya!  (:-)

Retro Red

Doing some quick editing as we go.

Thanks to everyone on this project for a great shoot!

Here are a couple of the final shots.