The Guide: Step Two – Photograph Your Item (Part 2)

Another problem is that the quality of daylight can change depending on the time of day, weather conditions, part of the world, time of the year, and many other factors.

Also, you’re limited as to when you can photograph your items if you use daylight.  Especially in winter, you can’t just photograph your items after you get home from work.

I tried photographing this pair of earrings at 8 am at the beginning of March (I believe).  For some reason, my custom white balance repeatedly returned this result:

I have no clue why. Even with the camera white balance set to “Cloudy” (which, since it was early morning, I felt was more appropriate than “Daylight”), the result was much too dark to be used without extensive editing. If you do too much editing, it becomes very apparent, and you can no longer accurately capture the item’s appearance.

Ok, enough with the bad stuff. If you look at the pictures above, you can see that, although they’re dark and blue, the shadows are very soft. This isn’t because the light is dim. This is because the light is diffuse.

Natural sunlight, when used properly, gives much better color than artificial light. It’s also cheaper, and easier on the environment.

The light I use is diffuse for two reasons. Number one is that it is not direct sunlight. I set the items on a piece of white or colored paper on a windowsill. It’s on a side of the house that only gets partial sunlight, so the light coming through the window is softer than if it were on a side of the house where the sun shines straight in.

This light is better. Far less contrast, the shadows are softer.

The second reason is that I actually have some semi-transparent plastic sheeting over my window to help with insulation (since I have single-pane windows and my house was built by a contractor with leftovers from his job sites). This helps diffuse the sunlight even more.

I don’t have an easy answer for how you can duplicate these conditions wherever you are. Here are some tips to help you find a good spot, though:

• Look at the shadows. If the things already in the area you’re looking at have really dark, defined shadows, so will the things you put there to photograph.
  
• Don’t let bright light fool you. When you’re standing outside, or even if you’ve just been looking at an area that’s in bright sun for a while, areas out of that bright light seem really, really dark. Our eyes naturally adapt to bright and dim lighting. Your camera can, too. That being said, not all shade is equal. If you’re going to photograph your item outside, be prepared to take a few test shots.
  
• Avoid mixed or uneven lighting. The dappled light of sun through leaves may seem picturesque, but your photograph will end up looking blotchy and unprofessional. If you can manipulate the light or the subject so that the foreground is lit and the background is in shade, give it a shot. But this is tricky, especially with leaves, which are usually blowing in the breeze.
  
• Take test photos, and don’t trust the viewscreen. I’ve taken pictures that have looked too warm on the viewscreen, gotten them on the computer, and they’ve been too cold. If possible, look at your test photos on more than one computer screen, too.
  
• Come back to it later. Be sure to revisit the test photos or your area when your eyes have adjusted to a different type of light. It may look very different.
  

If you can get some clear plastic sheeting, you might want to play with that, too.

Here’s what my spot looks like:

So once you’ve found your spot, find a nice piece of paper or cloth or whatever else to set your item on, and let’s get started.

Using Props

In my first example, I’m going to talk about using “props” to display your items, or, in other words, using things that don’t just lie flat.

Hooray! The thing I used before fits on the windowsill. But how can I photograph my item hanging from it without getting a weird, shadowy (or bright blue) background?

Not too hard. No matter what angle you’re photographing from, you can probably find a way to keep the paper in the background. However, DO NOT do this:

Blocking the light source = very bad.

Anyhoo, let’s stick the earrings on the thing and see how it looks. (I ended up flipping the rack upside down because of the way the earrings were hanging.)

Not too bad. I had to turn the paper and the prop to get what I wanted, but with a bit of editing, this will turn out just fine.

There is one very big bad thing about this photo, and that is that the lines of the photo draw the eye away from the earrings. All the lines of the rack point off the edge of the photo, when they should be pointing towards the subject. So this photo wins no composition awards. However, that isn’t what this tutorial is about.

If I could have, I would have liked to put something white on the other side of the earrings, for more even lighting. If I had a sibling, I’d put a white shirt on them and make them stand by it. Sometimes wearing a white shirt yourself can help. DO NOT wear a brightly colored shirt when you’re photographing anything close-up. The light will reflect off of it and it will show in your photo.

Using Paper

Fairly simple.

Or, prop the paper against a jar or something heavy.

Remember: the best way to learn something is by DOING IT! So go have fun!