Anatomy of a Photo Shoot
When we started working on our Dolls for Friends line we knew that quick snapshots of the projects were not going to cut it. We needed to be able to produce higher quality product shots which would give a more professional, artsy look to the work that was being produced. The solution we came up with ended up being fairly simple and low cost (yay!).
I went to a local art store and picked up about half-a-dozen large pieces of card stock to use as a solid back drop for the dolls. Each color was picked with the intention of creating as much contrast as possible when the dolls were shot against it.
Back in the studio I positioned my drawing table up against a large bookcase and slid the card stock in a curved fashion against the wall and bookcase (to create a seamless background). I bought a $20.00 desk lamp and outfitted it with a full spectrum light bulb to use as a fill light (I have since realized that I need to get a second lamp to cut down on my shadows). I could then setup the dolls against the background for a product shoot that produced some pretty clean results.
Once the dolls were setup I took my Nikon D-50, set it up on a lightweight tripod and started shooting. The first few shoots were very informative as I had the time to really work with the setup and start fine tuning my process. All the shoots are done in RAW with post production and cleanup done in Photoshop.
The best part about this whole process is the fact that the startup cost was so cheap, and I’m able to produce work that looks fairly polished. Granted a lot of the look I’m achieveing is due to a higher end digital SLR, but in a pinch I could probably get fairly decent results with the same setup and a lower quality camera setup. A camera that shoots in RAW, though, truly makes all the difference when it comes to shot quality.
If you would like to see what we ended up with from some of these shoots then you should check out the photos on Jill’s Flickr page.