I've been using my Flickr account a lot more to hold photos from my trip to Colorado. I'm not sure if I'll post those here, but if you're interested, Flickr is the place to find them.
EDIT: I added a few photos from Colorado to the gallery. The rest can still be found on Flickr.
It's been six months since my last post and although I would usually say "sorry!", I really just haven't had the time... and I'm not really sorry about it. Like I said at the get-go, this site would come and go from me from time to time. This was just one of those times.
But I got married and moved to a new home, so I was kind of busy.
There's some new stuff in the GD section. Wondering what to do with those wallpapers next...
I've been chipping away at learning more about product photography and I have to say, I'm starting to be really happy with my results. I hardly have a "studio" here, so I can only imagine what I'd be capable of with a proper set up.
I've been using the window light in my office as a key light, and then turning on my trusty Ikea paper lamp to add a nice warm yellow tone, and give the background some visual interest in the form of bokeh. I'm placing the subject on a pane of glass from an 8x10 photo frame with a sheet of printer paper underneath. Couldn't be simpler.
I'm just shooting what I have on hand at the moment, and right now that means guitar pedals! They make for a great subject because they have lots of small details and different knobs and switches that cast interesting shadows and and reflect light in an great way.
Here are a few of my favorites
As some of you may know, I do a podcast about guitars and recording music with a friend. I'm considering creating the page the show is hosted on public so those who land on this site can check it out if they're interested.
This would sort of change the scope of my site a little bit. I try to keep it relevant with design and photography, but if I added the podcast it might change to more of a "this is a site full of things I do" type operation.
On the surface that sounds like a cool idea, but I wanted to know what you all thought (and if I had any you all to actually have an opinion about this).
So you might see this pop up in the sidebar soon, but you might not also.
I'm just going to start uploading my product photo tests to my Flickr page. I don't need to bore you all with the details of my journey every day here. I'll keep this to the high level points.
It's a little bit of a gloomy morning here in northern New England so I decided to take advantage of the more naturally diffused light. May as well put these clouds to good use!
This time I faced my subject more towards the windows because the light was a little softer. I also wanted to make sure I got a little bit of reflection in the lens of my GoPro. Since it's too dark in my office for window light alone, I turned on the paper lamp in the corner and got this nice soft yellow light. THIS is the "hair light" I was looking for yesterday. It threw off the white balance a little bit, but it wasn't anything I couldn't correct.
I was using the glass again and this time I actually propped it up a little higher so I could shoot more comfortably. The light from behind the GoPro really helped with isolating it from the background on both the subject plane and the reflection pane. I got a much stronger reflection this way. I used the kit lens again all the way at 135mm, but I decided to go up to f/8 to make sure the GoPro was in focus from front to back. Yesterday I was running into some depth issues at f/5.6.
The background light was definitely helpful this time. I just need to find a way to make it fill the entire frame now... probably a large bed sheet or over-sized paper would do the trick. It would no doubt soften the light even more, but it might be worth trying. Now I just need to get some C stands...
I unfortunately don't have the means to set up a mini studio here at home, so I'm at the mercy of the tools in my office. Luckily, I have a small pane of glass, a step ladder, and a sunny day.
I put a few sheets of paper under the pane of glass to hide the step ladder, placed my subject (a KidRobot Dunny figurine) on the glass, and then positioned everything so the light from my windows was coming in to the side of the subject.
Right away I was getting some solid exposures. The sunlight was working perfectly and I was getting some decent background compression using my kit lens. The reflection off the glass wasn't as strong as I was hoping for, but it was working pretty well. I think if I had placed it over a darker surface I would have had more luck there.
My only other problem was getting a really sharp horizon line. I still need to research the best way to do that. I don't want my subject all the way back on the pane of glass necessarily. I might need to have a much larger set up to achieve what I'm thinking of. Something like a 70-200mm so I can shoot at a smaller aperture but still blow out the background. A longer surface would be helpful too. I've found that the "angle of attack" on this is really critical. Right now I'm struggling with keeping the entire pane of glass in frame without showing the edges. It's sacrificing my composition a little bit, but there's time to tweak that still.
Lastly I put my 430EXII speed light on slave mode and popped it in back of my subject to act as a "hair light". The result wasn't perfect... I should have bothered to lower the power even more, but the result I have here is usable. It definite helps the figurine pop off the background a little bit. I just don't like the lighting as much. Too hazy in the foreground...
Check out my examples and if you have any tips on product photography please drop me a line! I'm really enjoying exploring this so far.
I've been researching product photography a lot lately in preparation for a big project at work. I know I'll need to some typical light-box style shots to make sure I can isolate the subjects from the background for things like print and technical sheets, but I'm also hoping to reach into the more dramatic side of things.
I still have a few weeks to get a feel for this type of shooting, and considering it's been 3 years since I did any product photography, I could definitely use the time.
So it's all about making some interesting, right? Making something sexy. Here's a first introduction to photographing on my black coffee table. I grabbed and old SLR and went to town.
Obviously this isn't the greatest photo ever taken, but it doesn't have some qualities I'm really interested in exploring. Most notably...everything but the subject. Yeah, this shot is about this old SLR I have, but what I really like about it is the interesting crop, and the extreme bokeh I got from my kitchen window (it's a little blown out back there, but we can work on that). My favorite part though is the subtle reflection of the camera on the table itself.
This is just a simple wooden coffee table from Ikea, but I like the little bit of texture it provides under the subject. I still would like to try something with a high gloss finish that has NO texture, but I'm happy with this right now considering it's just a first attempt. The green from the trees is creeping around the body of the camera and spilling into the foreground, and the slight blues and purples in the lens are even being picked up by the table.
I have more experimenting to do with this... Now I just need something that is my height so I don't have to crawl around on my floor like a crazy person.
Here's a cool "typography style" poster design I worked up for DSD recently. I don't work this closely with type too often, but when I do I really enjoy it. I'm going to try and do some more with this style...
Here's a few from my shoot with Ryan & Lauren a few weeks ago! I'm really happy with the look of these. There's some more in the gallery. Go check 'em out! Go on!
