Alex Koloskov
Well-known member
This time it was a shoot for a front page of the new aDesign website, and we had new, “creative” requirements from a client. Meaning we were free to select how many products to shoot and how to position them. The most cool thing that we were need to compose shoot on a dark background.
Why I like to shoot on dark backgrounds? One of the reasons is because we did so many product shot (mostly for web and print catalogs), and all of them on white background, and it become a little boring. The second reason is that almost any product looks better, more dramatic on a darker background: this is why Lightroom and majority of the photo viewers (now even flickr lighbox) have a gray or darkish-gray background by default.
Rest of the requirements:
No other props beside brushes are used, no female model or powder (was my first intention to use). The quality of brush hair must be clearly shown.
So, after 3.5 hour in a studio, 5+ different lighting setups and different product compositions we got this:
Now, let me show you how it was done.
The lighting setup
Unfortunately, I did not have the final look of the lighting setup. But this is even better, as I have several “builder edition” setups photographed, and I’ll use them to explain how we got to a final shot. So, lets look at this one:
Two brushes were placed on the black glossy Plexiglas (why speller makes it uppercase?
, one was hanged on on a fishing wire. I’ve used DIY adjustable table made from my old heavy metal tripod: small adjustable shooting table is a must for such projects: this way I can easily place any light modifier around.
Total of six light sources were used: Lights one, two and four were highlighting the brushes, three and five (fifth is not visible here, it is hidden behind the screen: It is that large spot low on a background made by #5) were for the backstage. I’ve also used 2 screens (one side black other white foam-boards), placed from both sides from the shooting plane to protect the backdrop from the light spills.
Our “first edition” setup was different: we did not have lights #3, and #4.
Lets see what we got without these two light sources:
Looks nice, but right after we got it on a studio’s monitor (I shoot tethered), I immediately noticed that black brushes were indistinguishable from the black background plate. There was no way (and reason) to highlight a tabletop surface directly, so I’ve added a spot (purple spot on a gray background on our setup shot from light #3) to lit a background (gray paper) the way it gets reflected from a table surface. Also, I’ve dialed down light #5 to dim a spot behind the brushes.
Below is the result:
As we see, the reflection from that additional spot on a background created a very little, but clearly visible illumination on the black glossy table surface. It was enough to separate brushes from the table. The shot looks better now, however lets look at the black brush hair: left side of it sinks in a deep black blacks of the backdrop. Therefore, #4 light source was added: a 10º spot light, aimed at the black brush hair. You can see on a setup photo how assistant was holding it to find a right spot.
The result:
Now the shoot was much closer to a satisfactory result I was looking for. I’ve just need to add a screen to mask a spill from that hair spot.
However it was not the end: We did few more variations of this shot (we often do such), so client will have a wider selection of the proofs. One of them was the version from a very similar setup without a diffuser panel on the right: this way glossy brush handle got more glossy look. When client looked at the proofs, they liked that other, “sharp” lighting version, and also suggested that the vertical brush to be tilted towards horizontal, which should make the composition softer.
So, this is what we did, also added a gel to a lower background spot, to make it purple. Purple was one of the colors of aDesing, and client liked the idea. Lighting setup was also changed to support a new composition. Like I said, I do not have exact shot of it, but here is the similar one, from the same photo-session:
The main difference was that now we got two stripboxes: each created a reflection for the corresponded brush (brush whihc was in parallel with the box light). If you look at the first photo of this post, you’ll see what I mean: each brush has a nice long reflection on it’s handle, and that was from these two different stripboxes positioned exactly the same way as brushes were positioned.
The full shot specification along with more images from the shot (including before and after retouching) is on the blog, as usual:
http://www.akelstudio.com/blog/tabletop-photography-i-like-creative-shot-for-anisa-international
--
Prove it!
Alex Koloskov
http://www.koloskov.com
Why I like to shoot on dark backgrounds? One of the reasons is because we did so many product shot (mostly for web and print catalogs), and all of them on white background, and it become a little boring. The second reason is that almost any product looks better, more dramatic on a darker background: this is why Lightroom and majority of the photo viewers (now even flickr lighbox) have a gray or darkish-gray background by default.
Rest of the requirements:
No other props beside brushes are used, no female model or powder (was my first intention to use). The quality of brush hair must be clearly shown.
So, after 3.5 hour in a studio, 5+ different lighting setups and different product compositions we got this:
Now, let me show you how it was done.
The lighting setup
Unfortunately, I did not have the final look of the lighting setup. But this is even better, as I have several “builder edition” setups photographed, and I’ll use them to explain how we got to a final shot. So, lets look at this one:
Two brushes were placed on the black glossy Plexiglas (why speller makes it uppercase?
, one was hanged on on a fishing wire. I’ve used DIY adjustable table made from my old heavy metal tripod: small adjustable shooting table is a must for such projects: this way I can easily place any light modifier around.Total of six light sources were used: Lights one, two and four were highlighting the brushes, three and five (fifth is not visible here, it is hidden behind the screen: It is that large spot low on a background made by #5) were for the backstage. I’ve also used 2 screens (one side black other white foam-boards), placed from both sides from the shooting plane to protect the backdrop from the light spills.
Our “first edition” setup was different: we did not have lights #3, and #4.
Lets see what we got without these two light sources:
Looks nice, but right after we got it on a studio’s monitor (I shoot tethered), I immediately noticed that black brushes were indistinguishable from the black background plate. There was no way (and reason) to highlight a tabletop surface directly, so I’ve added a spot (purple spot on a gray background on our setup shot from light #3) to lit a background (gray paper) the way it gets reflected from a table surface. Also, I’ve dialed down light #5 to dim a spot behind the brushes.
Below is the result:
As we see, the reflection from that additional spot on a background created a very little, but clearly visible illumination on the black glossy table surface. It was enough to separate brushes from the table. The shot looks better now, however lets look at the black brush hair: left side of it sinks in a deep black blacks of the backdrop. Therefore, #4 light source was added: a 10º spot light, aimed at the black brush hair. You can see on a setup photo how assistant was holding it to find a right spot.
The result:
Now the shoot was much closer to a satisfactory result I was looking for. I’ve just need to add a screen to mask a spill from that hair spot.
However it was not the end: We did few more variations of this shot (we often do such), so client will have a wider selection of the proofs. One of them was the version from a very similar setup without a diffuser panel on the right: this way glossy brush handle got more glossy look. When client looked at the proofs, they liked that other, “sharp” lighting version, and also suggested that the vertical brush to be tilted towards horizontal, which should make the composition softer.
So, this is what we did, also added a gel to a lower background spot, to make it purple. Purple was one of the colors of aDesing, and client liked the idea. Lighting setup was also changed to support a new composition. Like I said, I do not have exact shot of it, but here is the similar one, from the same photo-session:
The main difference was that now we got two stripboxes: each created a reflection for the corresponded brush (brush whihc was in parallel with the box light). If you look at the first photo of this post, you’ll see what I mean: each brush has a nice long reflection on it’s handle, and that was from these two different stripboxes positioned exactly the same way as brushes were positioned.
The full shot specification along with more images from the shot (including before and after retouching) is on the blog, as usual:
http://www.akelstudio.com/blog/tabletop-photography-i-like-creative-shot-for-anisa-international
--
Prove it!
Alex Koloskov
http://www.koloskov.com
