Product photography: a set shot for Foggy Ridge Cider

Foggy Ridge Cider is our next speculative product photography shoot, and its another Appalachian cidery! The cider at Foggy Ridge has complex subtle flavors and this cider, 'Handmade', has a delightful development of flavor, and it really reminds me of champagne. It is full of carbonation and has a very light yellow, almost green, color. It is really delicious and crisp and goes great with a good brie.

For this commercial product shot we wanted to create a set. Something that placed this product in an environment that mirrors the spirit of the classic, yet complex flavors of the cider.  Here is a lighting tip, the spots of light in the background are actually a string of white Christmas lights that were placed in the bokeh of the lens far in the background. Somewhat overdone, but its beautful in the right type of setup. The image is rather nontraditional in the sense that it incorporates classic ideas of a still life into a modern and commercial looking background with a reflective black table top (which is black plexy by the way).

The two elements work together here to make a commercial shot that catches the eye while maintaining the spirit of classic simplicity that is true to this product. 

Product photography: Noble Cider in a noble way

One of our latest speculative projects has been to photograph the recent to-bottle Noble Cider, another Asheville nc local business. We wanted to create a way to display the beautiful bottles, and the rich colors of the cider inside, but we also wanted to go a step further. In this case we designed the project to resemble an illuminated manuscript. That is, a decorated and illustrated manuscript in a tradition that dates back in some cases over a thousand years, which usually includes gold leaf and intricate detail. 

Our goal ultimately was to create a strong commercial image that carries some of the spirit of these old periods, and merges with their existing middle age's motif. The message is that cider has a lot to do with the history of alcohol; and it can tastes incredible too!

I think I like the Spice Merchant the best myself, but The Golden Arrow is a close second.

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The wacom way

Pen tablet--a tech that makes our work precise, efficient and one that I could not draw digitally without. There's a pen that is pressure sensitive, depending on the model there varied nibs and some also have quick access buttons near your fingers that you can assign.   The tablet mirrors your screen, this is adjustable, but the idea is absolute positioning (this can take a little getting used to but it is well worth it).  And its wireless!  Working digitally is very forgiving and can also streamline complex endeavors, copying and transforming your way to lacy extravagance.  

Its a metaphor for the internet age, you can learn anything you want, with digital art you can do anything you want--but you have to figure out what to do with all that.  For me going into work mindfully is really important, turning a project over for a week or two before I start to actually put it down, then the project can be rendered somewhat quickly and then its back to pondering.  I follow the guideline of one of my favorite painting teachers, Tom Edgerton, who says finishing work is 90% looking and 10% doing! 

Product photography: Lusty Monk Mustard

We shot a new local product, Lusty Monk Mustard for another speculative commerical product photography shoot. This mustard is like the best mustard in the world, and we cant go on without them using our high quality product photography. We lit these jars with very soft defuse light and isolated them on both black and white, to create bold descriptive stock shots of their lustful product. 

Asheville loves this mustard, and we are helping to 'spread the lust' as these mustard makers say. 

Commercial product photography and design: illustrating Yerba Maté Synergy Bars

Merryn Stanfield illustrated our latest spec product shoot, Yerba maté synergy bars.  These things are a great tasting and filling energy bar made with Mate Factor local organic yerba maté. This illustration was rendered entirely digitally and features the ingredients of each bar in beautiful two tone drawings. We wanted to display the simplicity of ingredients, in the spirit of raw and organic food, while creating a strong commercial look to invite the eyes of hungry shoppers. The project came together with the clean use of balanced secondary colors and a repetition of form to maintain unity.  Merryn sampled the bars over and over in the search of the perfect pixels with the most appetizing hue. We think we accomplished our goals and are super happy with the results!

We love these bars, and we want others to find this great product. We feel sure this will help! You can order this product through their website and see a list of stores that carry them.

An impromptu photo competition

This week John entered a photo competition put on by the one and only, Ken Wheeler, also know as 'The Angry Photographer'. We don't normally focus on competitions but the prize for this one was a little too hard to pass up. 

Ken is giving away one of the new Digi-Bee Alien Bees DB400s to the winner, and we really want to get our hands on this new unit. It functions a lot like its older brother the Alien Bee B400 B800 and B1600 but it allows for remote adjustment, it has a one stop larger strobe output range, and it has an LED 400w daylight balanced modeling lamp!

In short, it has the potential to be another great strobe light in the studio while also acting as a portable, daylight balanced hot light for video. 

So the contest was: take a photograph of something held in your own hand, that was the size of, or smaller than, your hand. That was about it, very open, intriguing. Here is John's entry. We'll let you know if we win the light and just how sweet it is! And if we don't win we will buy one, and then let you know just how sweet it is!!

Update: We Lost! O well, it was a lot of fun. We bought one, its sweet! 

Product photography: an underwater shoot

Keeping up with our unconventional materials shoots, our latest spec shoot involved a water aerator, a large fish tank and several doses of glass cleaner.

This shoot was all about highlighting Defiant Whisky's alter ego Defiant Marine, a commercial diving company that does some really cool work. You can learn their story on Defiant's website: defiantwhisky.com. I wanted to make this connection while maintaining a clean commercial aesthetic. We think the end product has a pleasing ocean feel while being a refreshing and alluring beverage shot. 

This shoot required a complex lighting set-up and a lot of compositing to pull off. The final image is 7 different images composited into one. The bottle's glow and background are one image, the front label is another, and the top of the bottle is another.  The bubbles are from three different shots, and the water's surface is the final image that makes up this shot. 

We are proud of this one, and we hope Defiant will be too!

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The set-up shot was kind of negletcted on this shoot. But here is an early snapshot with some of the secrets of the image in it.

Product photography lighting tips: Another new way to shape light in the studio

We finally got the right EKE bulb for our Nikon Mark II Fiber Optic Light, and its really cool. The fiber optic light with its flexible 'arms' is perfect for precise lighting. And its fast, really fast, to setup a nice small set. 

We seem to be building a rather unique 3250k lighting set here in the studio now that we have the fiber optic light working, and color matched to our new favorite microscope light. I find that I have never disliked a Nikon product including these old lights. Working with these lights is quick, and stable, and a lot of fun.  

The image of the Praktiflex at bottom was taken with only the new Nikon light, and you can see the unit itself in the background of the setup picture. 

Product photography lighting tips: A not-so-new light that is changing our table top work

We have been tinkering around with a new light in the studio. It is an old Nikon product, but it's not photography equipment and I have a lot of good things to say about it.  

Its a C-DSLS Microscope Lamp, to be precise. It consists of a adjustable power transmitter and a hot-light head. The light head is attached to the body of the transmitter with a quality flexible cord, though I wish it were a bit longer. The unit has a lens element directing the light and creating a uniform circular spot. The light creates about a one foot circle at about two feet from the surface, the light quality is really pleasant. This makes sense as it is designed to light the very smallest of things! The bulb I have isn't 5500K but there are many ways to work with differing light temperatures (like putting a gel over the light or over your 5500k strobes).

The light head is small so it can fit behind things, or in a part of your setup that is limited in space. the light is also easily directable because of its small size and super flexible cord. Check out last week's post right bellow, it was taken with only this light source.

Being a quality Nikon product it is a pleasure to work with and a constant uniform hot-light. And a great secret for any product photographer!

Chunk of Amber Glass