One of the things I was interested in giving a shot at was sort of product glossy magazine type photographs.
Most of the product photography that I see done through the various photography groups I am involved in tend to involve lightboxes. I don’t own one and I’m not hugely enthused about buying more gear to set up photographs that I might not do too much with. Also, I spend a lot of time in in the outdoors and am slightly more interested in decontextualising products and doing something different with them. This came out of a discussion I had with a marketing guy from Quiksilver at some stage when we were talking about kite photography. He had visions of me getting a kitesurfer into Blackrock Baths I think; something which is unworkable because of the DART lines. But I put the idea away and decided to use it some other time.
Because it’s dark in the evenings, and the weather is generally miserable when it’s not dark, most of the photographs I’ve been taking lately have been in doors, and occasionally in the dark. I’ve been playing with toys and tricks either via the iPhone or the camera itself. Last week I got an intervalometre – the Canon one – for my 40D and had visions of things involving stars, gel light off camera flash. So on Friday evening I packed all the gear up and went to Dun Laoghaire to do a little more exploring.
Dun Laoghaire is starting to be my favourite place to take photographs lately. I only went out a while ago to recce a left of centre photography shoot that’s being stymied by the weather and tide so I have a lot to learn before I’ve exhausted my options. It’s more, much more to me, than Howth is and I never thought I’d say that.
Friday evening, in addition to all the camera gear, I also packed a bottle of nail varnish and a small little ickle bottle of perfume. I used to have loads of these; wish I had more. They sell them in gift sets so I’m going to look at getting a few more for experiments of this nature. The nail polish I chose because of the strong colour and I also liked the shape of the bottle.
One of the comments on this suggested that it wouldn’t look out of place on a glossy magazine. This was either shot with the 2.8 100mm macro or the 1.8mm 50. The interest in this type of shot was born out of the coffee and phone shot a few weeks ago (Modern Life is a Mobile Phone and Coffee on the Run). It’s not perfect – I can see one or two imperfections and also, if I had a choice again, I’d shoot it against a vertical array of lights rather than the single line. there was a little ickle bit of colour temperature work done on which had a negative impact on the shade in the traffic light which is the vaguely green light you can see left of centre.
I’ve other plans for this little bottle except every time I touch it I get covered in perfume. I finished that photography shoot smelling like downstairs in Brown Thomas. I need it to stop raining first however.
This is the nail polish shot. For my money, it’s slightly better technically speaking than the perfume bottle. It’s got a slightly strong colour but also that reflective top which is a bags to shoot. The next time I do this, I’d try to use a bottle of nail polish with a black or white cap. It’d be easier.
I’m eying up all sorts of stuff around the house though, including the iron, bits of crockery and idling wondering what I could do to totally decontextualise them and do something to make them catch people’s attention.
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