technical stuff

Product Photography Standards

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Many commercial photographers do product photography and it’s usually done on a white background. This style of product photography is very common. Web sites, catalogs, newspaper ads, brochures and billboards all frequently use “product-on-white”.

A white background is popular because: it reproduces easily and consistently in any medium; it doesn’t distract from the product nor cause any colour cast; it won’t go out of style; it’s easy to drop out or overlay with text; it’s easy to merge multiple product photos together. White is simply the most versatile product background.

Crazily enough, in 2014, Amazon was granted a US patent for product-on-white photography. This caused quite an uproar. Tens of thousands of photographers petitioned the US Patent Office to cancel the patent. But photographers can still shoot products on a white background. Amazon’s patented technique is somewhat specific in nature and it’s also unenforceable.
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Through the looking glasses

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It’s amazing how many business portrait photographers don’t know how to properly photograph someone who’s wearing eyeglasses. Photographers like myself, who wear prescription eyeglasses, might be more sensitive about this than photographers who don’t wear glasses.

Creating a good business portrait of a subject wearing eyeglasses is not difficult to do. The photographer has to pay attention to the position of the glasses and the lighting. The subject’s eyes are the highlight of the photo and should always be unobstructed.

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Talking a good picture

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Most portrait photography advice is technical such as what lens to use, how to position lights, what pose to use, etc. This is the easiest advice to offer but it’s also the least valuable.

You can do a good portrait with almost any lens in almost any type of light. The reason is that the content of a portrait always trumps the technical aspects of the photo.

Viewers don’t look at a portrait and say, “Wow, look at that lens choice!” or “I really like that 3:1 light ratio.” If a viewer notices the technique before the subject then the photographer has failed.

The most important factor in creating a good portrait is the ability to capture the moment(s) when the subject’s character, personality or, to be overly dramatic, their soul, is reflected in their face.
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A few quick thoughts

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While I was shooting an event last week, the client, who was looking over my shoulder, said, “That should be a good picture. Can you upload it to our Twitter account right now?”

I replied that it wasn’t possible with my camera but I could transfer the photo to my nearby laptop and then e-mail it to him. He said not to bother. He held out his cell phone, snapped a picture and uploaded it to his Twitter account. He seemed quite pleased with himself.

I was shooting at ISO 6400 with a 500mm f4 lens. He was using an iPhone 5. You can probably guess how his picture looked.
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Print it or lose it

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As you might know, the most archival storage medium is paper. It’s also the most common and the cheapest. (Yes, rock is more archival but paper is easier to carry around.)

Yet we still digitize almost everything in the belief that this will preserve that information. But as file formats, storage formats, software and hardware become obsolete, this information may be lost.

Vinton “Vint” Cerf, recognized as a founder of the Internet and currently vice-president of Google, this week stated:

In our zeal to get excited about digitizing, we digitize photographs thinking it’s going to make them last longer, and we might turn out to be wrong.
(…)
We are nonchalantly throwing all of our data into what could become an information black hole without realizing it. We digitize things because we think we will preserve them, but what we don’t understand is that unless we take other steps, those digital versions may not be any better, and may even be worse, than the artifacts that we digitized. If there are photos you really care about, print them out.

In 2013, the Photo Marketing Association launched its Print it or Lose it campaign to encourage consumers to print their valuable photos rather than risk accidental loss of those digital images.

 

Industrial workwear for photographers

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Most corporate photographers and editorial photographers will, sooner or later, have to shoot in a factory or on a construction site. This means you have to wear safety gear.

Having photographed in factories and construction sites for many years, including two assignments today, (one at an aerospace manufacturer and the other at a hospital construction site), may I offer a few suggestions to photographers who will be shooting in a similar situation:

 

• Although they may look fashionable, do not buy safety shoes. Get 6″ or 8″ safety *boots*. The reason is that safety shoes may be allowed in factories and warehouses but they’re not permitted on construction sites.

Safety boots must have the CSA green triangle patch which confirms that the footwear has a Grade 1 protective toe and a puncture-proof sole. It helps to also have electrical shock resistance.
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A matter of inches

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The more you use Photoshop, the more you find little issues with the software. For example, Photoshop lets you set the default unit of measurement for almost everything:

Almost everything.
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