Optical Prism February 2020 | Page 20

EYE FOCUS | FEATURE Product Photography Basics Taking a photo is easy; taking a good photo is “hard.” With a few tricks of the trade, you can produce great product photos with your smartphone. YOU WILL NEED: • A smartphone with a decent camera (anything 2017+ will suffice); • A smartphone with the ability to use a manual/pro mode (if your phone doesn’t come with this standard, there are apps you can get); • A smartphone tripod (easily found on Amazon for under $20); and 1. • A decent lighting source (a product photo booth, an area with lots of natural light, or portrait-style softboxes) Framing Your Shot The type of photo you want to take dictates how you frame your shot. 1. Backgrounds: Product photos for Instagram/etc. should be done with a single-colour background. White is usually best to showcase a product, but other colours can work well when done tastefully. 2. Photos for your website can also use a single-colour background, but adding some texture (such as using ce- ramic tile as your backdrop) can really level up a photo. While not a perfect example, photo 1 would really stand-out on an Instagram grid that was otherwise all-white. I love photo 2 as it simultaneously showcases the frames while demonstrating the life that surrounds them. The bokeh in the background is a wonderful touch. 3. 2. Props To make things more dynamic or to convey a sense of lifestyle ownership, consider looking at how props can change the mood of a photo. Photo 3 does two things really well: it showcases a va- riety of frames, while also providing leading lines that help the eye focus on the important parts of the image. Photo 4 really pops and elevates the frames; the books bring colour, texture and a sense of professional polish to the photo that the frames alone could not. 20 EYE FOCUS February Digital 2020 4.