UK Photographer James Karinejad Makes A Pretty Mess

James Karinejad is a commercial product photographer out of Edgware, North London and his work is probably best described as clean yet imaginative. Some of the clients he has worked with have included Dolce & Gabbana, Pizza Hut, Clarins, and Addison Lee. It’s also interesting to note that James made the transition to stills by first working in video.

I have always enjoyed watching these product shoots because the lighting required to make a product look desirable is often very different than the lighting needed to make a face or figure look good. In this video James shows us how he created the imagery for a cosmetic line as he drops makeup brushes and captures the powder exploding onto a dark background. This is very cool stuff and hopefully it will open your eyes to the possibilities when shooting simple products.

Here are some technical thoughts by James himself:

“I used an Elinchrom 600rx with a snoot and a Bowens 250 with a wide angle reflector. The camera was a Canon 5D mrkii and the lens a 24-105mm f4. The camera was set to 1/200 at f9 and I used a shutter release cable to fire the camera with one hand whilst dropping the brushes with the other hand. 1/200 was just fast enough to capture the falling brushes, any less and you would get motion blur, any more and you could see the shutter before it had finished its cycle.
Getting the right shot took some time and may I add to anyone who try’s this to open a window! Something I didn’t do and my throat paid for it for a few days after with all the make up flying around.”

View more work by James Karinejad at www.jameskar.co.uk