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Still Life and
Product
Photography
In still life and product photography, lighting
is the key to making the image work. You
can set a tone using creative lighting to con-
vey the feeling of the subject. You can also
use lighting to show texture, color, and form
to turn a dull image into a great one.
When practicing for product shots or exper-
imenting with a still life, the first task you
need to undertake is to find something to
photograph. It can be one object or a col-
lection of objects. Remember if you are
shooting a collection of objects, try to keep
within a particular theme so the image has
a feeling of continuity. Start by deciding
which object you want to have as the main
subject then place the other objects around
it, paying close attention to the balance of
the composition.
The background is another important con-
sideration when photographing products or
still life scenes. Having an uncluttered back-
ground in order to showcase your subject is
often best, although you may want to show
the particular item in a scene. An example
of this would be possibly photographing a
piece of fruit on a cutting board with a knife
in a kitchen.
Diffused lighting is essential in this type of
photography. You don’t want harsh shad-
ows making your image look like it was shot
with a flash. The idea is to light it so it doesn’t
look as if it was lit. You want to use an
umbrella or softbox to soften the shadows.
If none of these are available, bouncing the
flash off of the ceiling or a nearby wall can
do the trick.
Even with diffusion, the shadow areas need
some filling in. You can do this by using a
second Speedlight as fill or by using a fill
card. A fill card is a piece of white foam
board or poster board used to bounce some
light from the main light back into the shad-
ows lightening them a bit. When using two
or more Speedlights, be sure that your fill
light isn’t too bright, or it can cause you to
have two shadows. Remember, the key to
good lighting is to emulate the natural light-
ing of the sun.
Chapter 6 ✦ Real World Applications 153
6.32 Vintage bottle / Nikon D70 with
Tamron 70-300 f/4-5.6 at 100mm. ISO 200,
1/30 sec. at f/8 with two SB-600’s lighting
the bottle and one SB-800 lighting the
background. All Speedlights set to Manual
mode.
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