Studio Photography - Howard

For the studio photographs of the client of which business we was collaborating with, it is important to keep in mind what the shop is and what their intentions are. The shop is designed to be welcoming and friendly. So in order to get across to the viewer about the shop and owner it is important for us to produce images which portray this.
So we need to make sure the poses and the lighting for the shoot is in a way which communicates this. We wouldn't use a technique such as hard lighting nor rembrandt lighting as that would be portraying the client with a 'hard' attitude, you could even say intimidating. So our best options are lighting which doesn't have hard lighting.

Examples 

                                         

















I dont think shooting the particular client in a way like the above would be right for promoting him and the company. I feel that it cant be taken in a way which would make him look serious and too business like as thats not what his shop is about.

Here are some examples of final images of the client

These are the best photographs from the time we had to take photographs of him. We shot these images using two studio lights with soft boxes either side of him and the lighting ratio was 2:1. The day was very stressful trying to get everything organised with the group.  

Editing

With the shot, I mainly just edited so that the client looked semi welcoming to the viewer. I made his shirt a brighter blue than it was to bring a bit more colour into the photograph, increased the contrast so it brought more colour into the overall photograph, reduced the highlights a little due to the studio lighting being a bit too bright. 

Product

When I was organising the product side of the photography with the client, I asked about taking some of the products up to college to have the photographs taken in a proper studio environment. The client didn’t want there products taken out of close proximity in case they got damaged.

So we tried to set up a made up location studio to take the photographs but because we didn’t have a second light, due to the college not having the bulb, this is what happens.

The example images above display us trying to do product photography with one light. As you can see it creates a golden like glow about the image and leaves shadows on the backdrop, which is ‘not allowed’ in product photography.

            We therefore had to try coming up with another way to go about taking photographs of the products. The way we ended up doing the product shots was by laying a piece of wrapping paper on the floor and trying to use the natural light coming through the windows to try accomplish the product shot given the time we had and the problems that we encountered. 

                                

These are the best photographs which I managed to produce as the problems we had made the final outcome unsuccessful to me. The way we ended up doing the product shots was by laying a piece of wrapping paper on the floor and trying to use the natural light coming through the windows to try accomplish the product shot given the time we had and the problems that we encountered. 

Editing

With these I wanted the background to stick out, so I increased the contrast which brought the colours in the background out, reduced exposure slightly and just played with the colours a little to make them more appealing to the viewer.

Evaluation

I am annoyed with this project as the problems I encountered. Its annoying because there wasn't anything I could do to rectify the problems. The overall project for me was stressful and one that I didn't enjoy. I know I can produce better photographs, particularly the studio photographs.

I feel that the product shots we're of adequate quality level for which the client would have liked and the shots of the shop we're decent enough to be used. The final book we did looked nice enough for them and one that I think was alright.