Photo Quest #14 - Still-Life Photography - Runs from 4/29 - 5/5

WPG
Apr 29, 2008 at 6:38 PM
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I got this idea from looking at some great photographs on Ivysgrandkid's blog. Kid I hope you don't mind that I've used your photos are examples this week. Let's explore a different aspect of photography, commercial photography.

Let's pretend that you are a famous photographer that has been commissioned to take a photo for an advertisement in Vogue. For this assignement find take a still life photo using an existing advertisement and try to copy it as close as you can. If you can't find something you'd like to copy just make up something that you'd like to use photography to sell. Your subject could be a sandwich, some shampoo, how about a pretty table setting, a hot drink, a cold drink, a book cover or for you artistic folks something you've made.

You may use any setting you want, for close ups you might want to use the macro setting or a macro lens. You can spray water on your subject, you can use a natural or a staged subject. If you are copying an advertisement photo, pay close attention to the direction of the light source, the depth of field and the proportion of the subjects. Take your time and try different light sources, flash, natural or available light, lamps, candle light even a flash light can give you a nice effect.

Present you subject in a way that anyone would want to buy it. As always have fun your subjects can be humorous, serious, for children, teenagers, adults (please keep the content G-rated), for pets, for old folks the choice is yours.

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Thanks again for making me do what I need to do anyway! My husband bought me this camera after seeing the $500-$600 photography bills come across his desk every time I published a new book. 8,000 photos later, only couple dozen of them have been used for actually selling books :-)

Great I thought you might find this one of value..hope others do to. I think there is a lot to learn about set up subjects for the best photos and not just snapping photos.

Absolutely! I've done just enough of it to understand the value of paying someone else to do it for me. Quilts are very hard to photograph, especially the big ones.

Back in the day, we used to use mashed potatoes instead of ice cream (it doesn't melt) and shoe polish on turkeys, mmmm yum :-) Another favorite was Elmer's glue on cereal, it doesn't get soggy and looks better than milk.

Wow that is interesting about the mashed potatoes and glue...never knew that! Can hardly wait to see what you come up with.

My sister used to help prepare food to be photographed for a magazine - there were so many cheats!! No wonder the recipes never looked like the photo when we made them at home!

See I never knew that, I just thought I was a bad cook. *humph*

It depends upon what you are selling. Look at your cereal box, they are selling cereal, not milk. The milk in the photo is white glue. real milk just sits there and looks blah, but they are not selling milk, so they don't have to worry about it. They also pick though each and every flake to make sure they don't have any broken ones, they are all perfect.

The mashed potatoes are used when they are selling ice cream toppings, or the glasses or spoons, anything but ice cream.

How did you get so smart! I never knew that what I saw in a photo of cereal or ice creams was milk or ice cream! Thanks I think! :-)

My college roommate used to work for a place that did this. Remember those catalog photos of clothes where the shirts and pants had no wrinkles what-so-ever? She was the one laying on the floor pulling down on the pants legs to keep the wrinkles out for the picture. It was interesting to me, but I ended up going another direction and worked in layout and composition, then later, illustrations.

[this is good]

Ha you know all the tricks! I never would have guessed any of these thigns you have mentioned. If the end results are good it probably doesn't really matter what was done to improver the photos. Well at least to the photographer and the marketing folks,but maybe it matters to the consumer!

Photo Quest #14 - Still-Life Photography - Runs from 4/29 - 5/5

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