Ghost Mannequin Photography London

The Concept And The Behind-The-Scenes Of Our Creative Photography Shoot

The product we feature in this blog post is a perfect example of mixed techniques and difficulties. The Beats headset photographed are made of three different materials, and each one requires specific adjustments. We have the opaque plastic, the delicate yet detailed leather and the highly reflective metallic parts. Follow us in this in-depth analysis on one of our creative photography shoots.

The initial step is choosing the right background. Since we didn’t want to have colour casting, we picked a middle grey that helps to cut out the product without altering the contrast. Preparing the “floating” effect was rather easy, a boom arm and a a couple of clothes hangers solved our problems; we knew we have to retouch a little, but it’s an easy task. Alternatively, we could have used invisible thread, but we tend to avoid it when we are going to photostack; a small vibration can compromise the photoshoot, unnecessarily increasing our time behind the camera! . Ghost Mannequin Photography London

THE LIGHTING SCHEME

After placing the product, we start playing around with the lights. We have a frontal snoot-ed light that enphasise, with a sharp and direct light, the texture of the leather parts. The “cone” helps to concentrate the light solely in that area. Diffusing the right light with a frosted filter offers a nice, soft contrast on the product, without compromising the texturised effect on the leather. We softened the rim light, coming from the left, with the same Lee frost filter; we added also a polarising sheet, that aids to eliminate the reflection on the metal surfaces. With the help of an assistant, we started moving around black and white perspex sheets, trying to highlight or increase the shadows on some specific areas.

The final step – once we were happy with the lighting scheme, was photo-stacking, obtaining a perfectly focused product. The entire photoshoot took us roughly one hour.