Product Photography

Product photography has to make objects look their best — and do it efficiently enough to be commercially viable. Whether you're shooting a single hero product for an advertising campaign or hundreds of SKUs for an e-commerce catalog, the challenges of lighting, styling, and consistency are central to the work. This section covers product photography across scales, from tabletop setups to large-scale commercial productions.

Photoshop Tips For Moving Car Photography

This week over on the Fstoppers Forum there has been some pretty interesting posts. One that grabbed my attention was made by user Evolize Photog who showed how he photographs luxury cars in motion. In this video Evolize shows how he photoshopped his suction cupped boom arm out of a Lamborghini Gallardo hero shot.

How The Most Expensive Camera Body Cap Is Created

A while back we featured a story on a new camera body cap that was designed to protect your DSLR while traveling through the most extreme of circumstances. The LockCircle created a lot of controversy from our readers over both the price and also the size of the cap itself.

Capturing Exploding Glass With Silver Acetylide and Flash Photography

Capturing images of high speed events can be done in many different ways. In this video, flickr member Jon Rutlen went with a more explosive approach. Using a sound capturing device to trigger his camera, Jon shattered a bunch of different glasses in front of his DSLR camera and recorded the unique moment easily, reliably, and ultimately in a pretty safe environment.

Add Special Effect And Costumes To Your Photos

This video gives a quick look at Jay P. Morgan's latest advertising campaign for Pedia-Sure. The video isn't quite as informative as Jay's average BTSV but there is still a lot to learn from it. I was really impressed by the size of the campaign and then range of images that were taken.

A Million Tshirts And One Photo Studio

Full time photographers aren't the only ones with working studios these days. Why would you outsource your photography if you need new images on a weekly basis? Tshirt company Threadless recently showed the guys over at Photoshelter how they use photography in their own business.

EA Sports NCAA Football 12 Cover Shoot

EA Sports has been allowing fans to vote for the cover of their newest installment in the college football series NCAA Football 12. For the contest, they filmed four short behind the scenes videos from each player's photoshoot which can all be found below. The photoshoots consist of two primary setups: hall of fame style portraits and on the field action shots.

How To Play Tennis On The Wings Of A Flying Plane

Novak Djokovic is currently ranked alongside the top tennis pros in the world. Only a crazy person would put his life and talent in jeopardy...but that is exactly what Head Tennis Racquets have done for their Untek IG Speed MP racquet commercial.

Worst Hoax In Modern Day Photography?

About 10 days ago I received an email asking me to check out a video showcasing a new invisible camera. Initially I thought it was probably some crazy technical exercise but about half way through it became blatantly obvious that the whole video was a complete joke.

Ralph Lauren's Runway Event Goes 4D

The other day I came across a popular video on Vimeo right now that featured an amazing new projection technique hitting large buildings across the world. The art is called 3D Projection Mapping and the effect is really cool.

The Barbie Fashion Model Photoshoot

Yes, you read the title correctly. The famous female Mattel toy has photoshoots, and they are actually quite extravagant. When I first saw this I thought it was a joke but after doing some research I found that Mattel designer Robert Best has big production photoshoots like this for all his Barbie Fashion Model Collections.

The Lexus LFA Drifts Around A Sports Illustrated Model

Yu Tsai is an incredibly impressive fashion and advertising photographer. He also is an established film maker and director (check out his film section on his site). Recently Yu Tsai was faced with the task of trying to make a car ad stand out in one of the most popular magazines in the world: The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.

How To Shoot Motorcycles In The Studio

James Douglas was commissioned to shoot high end bikes for Riders Alley's catalog. He was kind enough to shoot a simple BTS so that we could also be a part of the fun. I enjoyed seeing the relatively simple background and lighting produce a great finished product.

Behind The Scenes On The 2011 Maybelline Calendar

Each year Maybelline creates a limited edition calendar featuring crazy concepts and wild makeup. This year the cosmetic brand teamed up with photographer Kenneth Willardt to produce some very vibrant images. Make sure you head over to Kenneth's commercial section of his website to view a bunch of the images.

Behind The Scenes With Marc Jacobs, Madonna, and Louis Vuitton

Back in the Spring of 2009, Louis Vuitton creative director Marc Jacobs teamed up with music mogul Madonna produce their new ad campaign. This video is primarily from the point of view of Marc but that shouldn't prevent you from seeing how photographer Steven Meisel executed the overall shoot.

Watch Photography Can Take Hours To Perfect

If you were an Fstoppers reader back when we launched then you probably saw Lee Morris's humble attempt at how to photograph a Rolex watch. It wasn't perfect but I think it was helpful in shedding some light on how meticulous product photography can be. Well now Alex Koloskov has made an extremely detailed video on how he created his latest hero shot of a men's Marine Star Bulova watch.

One Part BTS Video, Three Parts Victoria's Secret

The holiday season is almost behind us and if you've spent any time watching college football tv then you've probably seen the new holiday Victoria's Secret commercials. The creative team at VS always makes some of the most high intensity commercials year in and year out.

Is This A Better Way To Shoot RAW?

I know many of our readers do not like being told how to shoot their images and many more even hate watching promotional videos for companies trying to sell them on a new way adjust their workflow.

Vincent Laforet Plays DP For TV Commercial

Most people know Vincent Laforet as the guy that got his hands on the 5DM2 before it was released to shoot that amazing promo video. Well he is a full time photographer but in the video below he got to be the DP for a Famous Footwear commercial. The final product is stunning.

Walking on Water: The Newest Extreme Sport

This video was released earlier this year but I really loved watching it so I figured you would too. It's a pretty clever way to advertise a product like waterproof shoes and would have make for an excellent commercial concept for an advertising ad. Click the full post to view a BTS video about this crazy new sport called Liquid Mountaineering.

Stefan Segers Outlines an Ad Campaign

Stefan Segers is a commercial photographer from the Netherlands. Although all of his website is in Dutch, he was nice enough to produce a behind the scenes video in English just for Fstoppers. Stefan explains from start to finish how he created the artistic look for the lastest Pajar campaign.

Kim Krejca Explains The Importance Of Food Styling

Kim Krejca is a professional food and prop stylist. Combining her background in art direction and culinary arts, Kim now works with photographers to create the perfect images you see on menus and in maganzines. Most of what you see in terms of food photography is cleverly engineered and often times flat out fake.

How To Light Glass

Lighting products can be extremely tricky. Especially if that product happens to be reflective. Check out this video from LearnMyShot.com and see how they choose to light 7 wine bottles. The video itself isn't a large production but there is a boat load of good info to be learned.

How To Shoot Splash Photography

Here is a very simple but totally informative video about splash photography. I cannot figure out who this photographer is, if you happen to know please post it in the comments below.

Don't Cut The Cheese, Pull It

Want to know what goes into creating a few seconds of a Domino's Pizza commercial? How often do you screw your pizza into the table? By the way, I think their hand model may be a serial killer when she isn't pulling cheese.

Paul Ripke shoots a watch campaign with a sailboat

The first time I clicked on Paul Ripke's website and saw the images on it, I knew I had found something special. Fstoppers reader Thomas send us this video and Tobi helped translate what is going on this video. It maybe a little long for some of you especially if you only understand English but it's still pretty awesome.

Pete Barrett Shoots A New Balance Ad (Update)

Here is a quick timelapse of one of Pete's latests commercial gigs. It is a bit difficult to see what he is exactly doing in terms of lighting but I am simply impressed by the complexity of this shoot. Look how many people are on the set! After you watch this video head over to his website and be prepared to be blown away.

Lee Morris Attempts To Shoot A Rolex Watch

I am not a product photographer but I really enjoy the work that goes into creating a great product shot. In this video I attempt to shoot a Rolex Daytona watch. I am not a product photographer so I had to figure out a lot of this as I was shooting. If you have any helpful comments leave them below.