Lighting in photography goes beyond offering a perfect exposure, the way you light an image also shapes that image and levitates it from the 2D (second dimension) form of that that it is to an almost 3D format. Depending on the light source and whether it’s a hard light or soft light, the resulting image always takes a different form.
When lighting products, the key is to highlight the shape of the products, much as you would when photographing a female human. Products come to life when photographed against the backdrop of a contrasting or complementary colour so, depending on the creative direction of the shoot of the brand colours offered by the brand representative, knowledge of the colour wheel, and how to achieve colour harmony really pulls the images together and provides a pop that guides the eyes of the viewer directly to your product.
Hard Light source is great for creating shadows so depending on the feel of the session, you can either opt for a hard light source or a more diffused light source so the product appears silky smooth (especially when shooting products geared towards women).
Personally, I’ve always been drawn to diffused lighting but in the course of creating, I discovered that sometimes, shooting bare bulb flash offers the exact look that suits the product. A little directional shadow helps the product stand out, especially when shooting against a white backdrop. Modifiers like snoots (or in my case, an empty Pringles can), softboxes, and boom poles are instrumental to getting that final banger shot.
Below are a few images I shot using an Octagon softbox and a long white sheet for diffusion.
Have you tried Product Photography? What’s your preferred setup? Let me know in the comments section. Cheers.
