Premise: Get KibbleTime Pet Carriers up and running. The company has absolutely zero visual content resources available and needs to launch an e-commerce website. Create a series of products-on-white images for 14 different pet carrier designs to populate a web store. Additionally create several stylized images to populate the website home page and possibly get a start on some social media accounts. This will be an ongoing project with additional visual asset deliverables as the company continues to flesh out its social media and web presence. This case study post is focused on the initial commercial photography project. Future efforts for KibbleTime will include lifestyle product photography and video content as well as updated product-on-white visual assets, and will be covered in separate case study posts.
Scene Setup for Product-on-White Pictures: Products on a white background are the absolute baseline staple of product photography. There is certainly more than one way to approach it and achieve a professional result. KibbleTime had a couple of specific requests: 1. Include a subtle drop reflection and 2. Show the pet carrier handles and straps upright in the air. Here is how that was accomplished.
- Lighting Setup: I went with a three strobe light setup in this case. One double diffused rectangular softbox firing through a large sheet of Lee 216 translucent diffusion material to achieve a backlit style background. A large double diffused rectangular softbox arranged slightly in front and above the subject and pointing downward at an angle. This setup alone would do a solid job of capturing the products in a way that looks professional and requires very little post production editing. But I added in a third strobe with a reflector and grid shooting in from the side at a 45° degree angle to provide some relatively hard fill lighting.
- Drop Reflection: KibbleTime wanted a more subtle drop reflection so I had to come up with a new solution. Normally I do this by placing the products on a large sheet of white acrylic. Although this gives a very professional looking result, it is not at all subtle. The solution in this case was to use a sheet of white vinyl, like the type used to make vehicle wraps. It is a little shiny but has enough texture to the surface to diffuse the reflections just a bit so they are not so dominant in the image.
- Magically Suspended Handles and Straps: This was pretty easy to do. I just used some fishing line tied off to a C-stand boom arm above the pet carriers and out of the image frame. Fishing line is a good choice here because it greatly reduces the amount of post processing required to ensure that it is not visible in the final image.
Modern product photography almost always requires focus stacking to ensure that the entire image is in sharp focus. This is especially important when the products are large or turned at an angle. It involves taking multiple exposures of the same scene with each image progressively moving the focus point from the closest part of the image to the farthest, or vice versa, then combining the images into one super sharp photograph with a special software. This project was no exception and all of the product-on-white images are focus stacked.
Here are a few of the final product-on-white shots for you to look at, but I would invite you to just visit their web store https://www.kibbletime.com/kibbletime-shop to actually see my work in action. Maybe buy a pet carrier too while you are there if you need one.
Scene Setup for Stylized Photographs: KibbleTime wanted to divide their product line into three categories and needed something more interesting than just a product on a white background for the category thumbnails on the homepage. We chose three products that were representative of each category. Then I selected backgrounds that were complementary to the product colors.
Lighting was done with a strobe and reflector with a grid to achieve an interesting sharp shadow. A large double diffused softbox provided a soft fill to balance out the exposure. The sharp shadows and bold, flat colored backgrounds give a currently trendy look and work well for the intended purpose. These images were also focus stacked so that the entire product is in sharp focus. While I was at it I did a few macro photos just because lighting was already set up and it just needed a quick lens change.
Lifestyle Photographs: I used my own dog to get a few lifestyle product shots that KibbleTime could use on the webpage and get a start on social media. One of these images appears at the beginning of this case study post. A Facebook model call for cute small dogs in the local area turned up a cute Mini Dachshund as well. Lighting and setup for these photos was more like traditional portrait photography. There is absolutely no way I can get a dog to sit stone still long enough to get an effective focus stack. Fortunately for these types of images it is not as crucial that every single spot on the photography be in sharp, flawless focus. I just used a single softbox and strobe on a stand and dialed in the exposure and general focus area before placing the animals into the shot. Stopping the lenses down a little gave me some breathing room to keep the eyes, nose and product in focus, even if the dog moved unexpectedly. The lifestyle product photography for KibbleTime will be an ongoing effort over time, so you can expect to see more about this in future case studies.
Challenges: Every project presents some sort of technical and creative challenge that has to be overcome. I pride myself in finding effective solutions to this without a client having to hold my hand. This project was pretty straight forward technically and primarily involved just applying good photography and lighting techniques that I have learned over time. This biggest issue encountered was getting the two dogs in the lifestyle shots to pose long enough to get a good shot. The solution to that is having the camera and lighting dialed in before attempting the shot and be ready to move quickly.
As always, if you need professional product photography services to elevate your brand, contact Freeman Weems at Telsecta to discuss effective commercial photography solutions tailored to your needs.