Boston Product Photography- Matt McKee - Studio Photographer

Anatomy of a Product Photo Shoot - Part A - Begin at the End.

2009-04-29T07:29:00.001-04:00

I believe that a photoshoot, whether for a product illustration, corporate portrait, or annual report cover, starts with the vision of the final image. Begin at the end, as it were. Ansel Adams called it "previsualization" and it is what makes the difference between a great image and hours of fumbling around in a dark studio.

The first thing I ask my clients, when they come to me with a shoot idea is, "where is the picture going to be used?" Almost always, they have a specific plan as to why they want this image. It could be a brochure or sell sheet, web page or direct mail card. Or a combination of many uses.

How they plan to use it is very important to how we create the image. If the image is solely going to be used in a product catalog, then the image needs to be designed so that it can share attention on a page with other products.

However, if it is for a press release or publicity release about the product or company, or if it is for an ad or trade show sell sheet, then the final photo illustration has to practically jump off the page to get a potential buyer's attention.

The plan and rational for each decision about why we are making the image directly impacts how we produce the image.

More about the Anatomy of Product Photography next time!

How to Photograph your Artwork for the Web

2009-03-16T11:04:00.001-04:00

In this age of digital submissions, an artist needs to know more than just how to paint, draw, sculpt or otherwise create. More and more shows and contests are running their jurying process via the web.

This seminar, which takes place at the Eliot School, in Jamaica Plain, is designed to help take the sting out of learning how to take good digital photos of your artwork (without spending a ton of money on gear), how to get the image ready for uploading to the web (without photoshop) and how to make sure your digital image is around when you need it in the future!

If you are an artist in the Boston area, this is the seminar to see. It takes place on April 22nd at 6:30pm.

Sign up for the workshop at eliotschool.org and check out their other marketing workshops as well.

Some of the topics covered in this workshop:
- What is a pixel and what is resolution and why should I even care?
- How can I make my camera do what I want?
- What should I do with the pictures?
- Is there a simple way to do this? (the answer is yes!)

I love the photograph but what do I do with it?

2009-03-09T07:50:00.001-04:00

I get this question sometimes, when I am talking about my photography to owners of companies who are, understandably, more concerned about making payroll than discussing where art and commerce intersect (that's marketing at its finest, folks!). I also get it from graphic designers who are used to responding to orders from their clients.

Yes, I get that not every photograph has to be a museum piece. Sometimes, a product is just a product. But, shouldn't the photoshoot be the best value that you can get?

I don't mean "spend as much as you can." That would be silly, self serving, and, ultimately, deadly for my business.

The value, as any entrepeneur can tell you, is not just in the final object (photo, product, whatever). It is in the process, in the plan, and in the execution.

Many times, the story I have been told runs like this: "We did it ourselves. Twice. And, it was okay but...[retouching fees, didn't look quite like x...] "

Or: "We found this picture online. It was short money. We put it on the cover of our brochure. [So did our competition, it was too generic, it wasn't our product/people/service]."

Even worse: "We downloaded this picture from someone's photo sharing site. And, now we have a cease and desist letter, plus a court date."

So, you love the portfolio, but it isn't quite your product type/looks real artsy/looks expensive. That's okay.

What you do with it is use it as a conversation starter. Find a photo that is nice and ask the photographer the key question: "If you were going to photograph my product, how would you approach it?"

If the photographer asks about the goal of the photograph, the value of the image to you, your company and your potential customers, you have someone who will collaborate with you and work the intersection of art and commerce to your advantage!

--

The picture of the custom built motorcycle above was created in an iron fabrication company down in Rhode Island a few years ago. We used a combination of light sources to get the nice highlights, including a 12' by 12' silk on two high boy stands on the camera left. On camera right was the biggest softbox I had in my collection. Various white and silver cards were distributed around to keep the highlights clean. A smoke machine gave us the atmosphere in the background and the light streaming in through the windows was courtesy of Mother Nature.

It's just a simple Product Photograph!

2009-02-24T07:52:00.001-05:00

Well, yes... and no!

A product photograph, from our little photo studio, just outside of Boston, is almost always a combination of collaborative thinking, careful interviewing and preplanning.

This beautiful, art deco style lamp would look good on almost any background. However, looking around the show room during our initial conversation with the client, we quickly decided that the image needed to carefully reflect an old world warmth and quality.

Back at the studio, we pulled out a canvas background we had created a while back. It consisted of an application of a material called Instant Rust. I had remembered that the application had turned out with a nice, painterly quality that reminded me of the old masters' paintings of bowls of fruit and other still life compositions.

The lamp itself, with its round top, projected a warm glow that we needed to imitate in the shot. Also, with all that chrome, we needed to figure out how to create smooth, uninterrupted highlights.

The set was built in a small room, with the 4'x8' canvas swept out across the floor. A strobe head with a grid and warming gel was targeted on the background and adjusted so that the light looked like it was coming from the lamp. A second strobe, shot through a 3'x6' sheet, became our main light to the right of the camera. And, a large white card was added on the left to give us the highlight on the left side of the shaft. Some time was spent balancing the exposure for the incandescent bulb in the lamp and the strobes.

There was a conversation about the light switch. Do we show it or not? Since it was, ultimately, part of the design and usability of the product, we included it.

There are no Accidents in Product Photography

2009-02-17T08:42:00.001-05:00

Actually, according to your audience, there are no accidents in any of your photographs. Whatever they see in the picture is what they think that you meant to be in the picture.

You could tell them that something was a lucky accident or that it was a mistake and they shouldn't look in the corner or something.

However, most of the time, photos get seen without the creator there to explain them. They live and die without us. Often, without us even knowing.

This shot of a wonderfully plated piece of salmon was created by a chef in a conference center in Atlanta. We were brought down to photograph the property and part of the project was to promote the restaurant.

We scouted the location earlier in the day and found a spot that had controllable lighting and was out of the way enough so that we wouldn't interfere with the service. We also had a frank discussion about what would be in the shot, which way the plate needed to face and what, exactly, would be important and what would be secondary to the story we were creating.

At shoot time, we set up on a "stunt" plate. It was initially, a plate with a balled up napkin on it, so we could set up our lighting. As a result of prescouting the location, I knew that I would use my own lights and turn off the room lights. Using a combination of strobes and hotlights, the shot quickly evolved and the Chef brought out the final plated entree.

A quick brush with some olive oil, a tweak of the garnish and we captured the image.

And, everything in the frame, from the bacon to the wine bottle, is exactly where we meant it to be.

Digital Illustration in Product Photography

2009-02-09T08:21:00.001-05:00

Pre planning a product photograph is the best way to get the maximum impact for your buck.

Many of the conversations I have with potential clients start out with them calling me up and asking, "How much?"

And, I always feel a little bad when I have to ask "For what?"

I am not being a wise guy. I am not making fun of them. I am simply trying to identify what their goal is for the product shot.

For example, the digital illustration above was created to be used with a press release that would go out to all of the automotive trade magazines. Our goal, therefore, was to create an image that would appeal to the magazine editors.

It had to:

be more than a simple documentary photo of the product on white.

illustrate what the product looks like.

illustrate what problem the product solves.

be shown in a way that the target audience would understand.

The shot would also be used for their catalog and other sales collateral. But, since the editorial use came first, that was what we designed and optimized the photograph for.

We started with a "napkin" plan, a sketch of the elements of the shot jotted down on a piece of paper. This was our blueprints for the rest of the production. Without this step, we could have spent hours or even days, going back and forth, trying to come to a meeting of the minds, wasting time and money.

Instead, we knew what angle the client liked best angle, we knew where the "sweep" should be. And, we knew what kind of a stock shot in the background would appeal to our target audience.

The setup, in my small photo studio, just outside of Boston, was fairly simple. We only had one wiper, since this was a prototype. We shot it twice, using a nice broad light to give us smooth highlights. In post production, we set up the stock background and knocked out the background on the two wiper shots.

The whole shoot and post production was around three hours. But, we couldn't have done it that quickly, or efficiently, if we hadn't started with a plan.

Boston Product Photography Blog restart

2009-02-06T07:57:00.001-05:00

Okay, so I really haven't been slacking here, despite what you may think. My studio is a multifaceted beast that takes on all kinds of photography and photo illustration projects. For the last however many months, I have been redeveloping the mckeephotography.com site to more fully reflect one particular side of my commercial photography.

And, while we were at it, we started another blog at blog.mckeephotography.com to show off some of our more digitally manipulated and conceptual images, many of which are also available as stock photos from photoshelter.

So, why are we resurrecting the blogspot photography blog? One thing we do a lot of here in my little photo studio in Dedham, is capture the functionality of a product.

I like to think of it as table top photography that is designed to illustrate the soul of an engineer's or entrepreneur's design. The product shot needs to show the audience why the widget was thought up and what problem it solves.

Not always an easy task and even the simplest looking photo goes through a lot of thought and back and forth before we start setting up.

Stay tuned, gentle readers, and we will talk about product photography in the future posts!

Swimming in a Fish Tank

2008-10-06T08:12:00.001-04:00

So, how do you get a picture of Cardiofocus's latest Laser Ablation tool?

Start with a 30 gallon fish tank. Add a background. Add about 30 cc's of 2% milk. And then start playing with light!

Just remember, electricity and water make for a very, erm, shocking combination.

Pink Cadillac

2008-09-18T12:08:00.001-04:00

This summer, as I may have mentioned, I had the pleasure of joining my good buddy Greg, from Controlinteraction.com, on a trip out west to Moab.

On the way out from his apartment in Dallas, we passed a place that I had always read about but never visited: Cadillac Ranch, in Amarillo, Texas.

We didn't get to stop at that moment, as we were trying to catch up to the rest of the Texas Rovers and the sculpture was on the other side of the road. But, on the way back, we arrived just as the light was starting to get interesting.

High tech toys

2008-09-08T07:37:00.001-04:00

High tech labs are always interesting to walk into. This one was for Cambridge Nanotech. They are developing ADL technologies for other industries. What, exactly, this means, I am not too sure. (Hey, I said they were cool. I didn't say I knew what the machines were doing! ;-))

However, the machines are shiny and the clients are proud of their accomplishments. Between the marketing director and myself, we came up with a set of images that will help to convey this pride and passion for their products.

Meet NESSC

2008-08-25T09:19:00.001-04:00

Meet Gabe. Meet Dr. Raynhem.

Soon, there will be a new web site for Dr. Raynhem's practice, along with new collateral pieces featuring images like this one, showing the staff as real people, interacting with each other and with the patients.

This was a fun project, made all the better for the fact that we had worked together on Dr. Raynhem's first marketing projects two years ago, when we turned her kitchen into a medical office for the day!

This project also gave me an opportunity to work with Margina Dennis again. She is a very talented hair and makeup artist and an asset to any shoot.

Sunshine

2008-08-04T10:11:00.001-04:00

This image of Stephanie was created a little while back. We were shooting on a porch deck and she moved closer to the house. The roof line just cut the sun off part of her face. And, she closed her eyes against the glare. Click!

An EMC Server

2008-07-31T18:13:00.001-04:00

There is something about a server room. Row after row of large masses of data. Lights blinking. Wires streaming.

I always want to talk in a hushed tone around these objects, as if I would interrupt some critical calculation by asking where the light switch was.

Of course, you can't whisper, or even talk softly, because of the cooling fans, air conditioning units and occasional tech engineer trying to figure out why the marketing director wants to show him working on the new unit instead of the older one that needs to be repaired.

The third Monkey

2008-06-17T15:20:00.001-04:00

This here is Alison Beach, military, law student and actor at the Footlight Club.

She and the two previous portraits are for the Footlight Club's All in the Timing.

The Monkeys #2

2008-06-02T07:33:00.001-04:00

All in the Timing, Poster Shoot OutTake. Brad Reed, an actor to watch.

One of my guilty pleasures is working with actors. They make it so easy to create fun and interesting images to market their productions!

Brad Reed, who is making his debut on the Footlight Club stage, had us rolling behind the camera.

Stay tuned! I have one more before I reveal Christine Conrad Lane's poster design!

More fun than a barrel of...

2008-05-27T12:40:00.001-04:00

Monkeys.

Just finished up another poster for the Footlight Club for their production of All in the Timing. The idea for the poster came from Kristin MacDougall, who loaned me the script for a quick read before the shoot.

I shot ice coffee out of my nose inside of 2 pages.

Christine Conrad Lane did the design work on the poster, which I will show you next time. She did awesome work, as always.

It looks like All in the Timing is going to be a fantastic show so go get tickets now, if you are planning to be in the Jamaica Plain area in the next few weeks.

Rob Guptill is the actor featured above.

Real People Portraits

2008-05-12T09:45:00.001-04:00

This is another portrait from the Reflections at the Footlight project I did a while back.

Tonee was the stage manager during that project, so we found an interesting piece of the backstage area to set up her portrait.

We lit her with a large octabank in the front and an umbrella from behind.

She walked onto our set and we had our image in no time. On to the next set up!

Power Lunch- Redefined

2008-05-05T11:27:00.001-04:00

Ah, kids.

Brian Heil, over at Hue Brand Group, creative directed this project, for a non-profit reading program. We had a lot of fun playing with the kids and they, I think, had a lot of fun with us.

The challenge, as always, is to keep their attention span. Or, at least, direct their attention to what we need to accomplish.

I learned a lot from this shoot. One of the kids taught me some of the worst knock knock jokes ever!

Create Magazine's Editor's Choice --Correction

2008-04-30T09:59:00.001-04:00

Whoops! I guess people really do read my blog. I was just informed that the picture I posted in the first press release was one of the nominees but not one of the winners.

And, not to brag, but I got two Advertiser Awards!

Both of the ads were put together from images created to promote the Footlight Club, America's Oldest Community Theater.

This one was for their production of Charles Busch's classic spoof of Vampire Lesbians of Sodom and Sleeping Beauty or Coma.

In a rather bizarre turn of events, right before we concepted this poster, A&E ran a show about Mr. Busch and introduced me to his creatively spoofy world.

I had had an opportunity to come up with a poster for the Club's earlier Busch production of Psycho Beach Party.

The best part of these productions is working with comedic character actors. Rodney Raftery and Eric Greimann were a blast to work with and the difficult part was narrowing down which images to use.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MATTHEW MCKEE PHOTOGRAPHY WON THE AD MOST LIKELY TO GRAB YOUR ATTENTION AWARD AND THE BEST SHOT AWARD IN CREATE MAGAZINE’S EDITOR’S CHOICE AWARDS

Orlando, FL, April 16, 2008 – Matthew McKee Photography won the A Most Likely to Grab Your Attention and Best Shot crowns in Create Magazine’s Editor’s Choice Awards. Engel conquered tens of other candidates to earn the title and was selected based on their originality and unstoppable design. The award-winning works dazzled the world in the Sep+Oct 2007 Northeast issue and the May+June 2007 Northeast issues respectively.

“Matthew McKee Photography produces consistently stimulating and innovative ads that never cease to impress,” said Create Magazine Editor Dana R. DeLapi. “Their work is always impressive and perfectly complements the message of Create Magazine.”

Create Magazine has seen some fantastic creativity grace its pages in the last year. From advertising to design, writing to gadgets, the Create Team has singled out the best of the best in a showcase for the May+June 2008 issue. With fun quirky categories like “Most Likely to Make you LOL,” the Editor’s Choice Awards provide recognition based on a different set of criteria.

The May+June issue of Create Magazine will be on newsstands on May 12, 2008. Create is also available online at www.createmagazine.com for Create Magazine subscribers and Create Network members.

In the lab...

2008-04-29T09:19:00.001-04:00

Lab work is always very serious business. Creating photography to illustrate this serious business is serious business. And, everyone involved in the project is serious at all times, because this is serious.

Seriously.

Create Magazine's Editor's Choice Award

2008-04-22T10:39:00.001-04:00

Hey, Wow! Thanks!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MATTHEW MCKEE PHOTOGRAPHY WON THE AD MOST LIKELY TO GRAB YOUR ATTENTION AWARD AND THE BEST SHOT AWARD IN CREATE MAGAZINE’S EDITOR’S CHOICE AWARDS

Orlando, FL, April 16, 2008 – Matthew McKee Photography won the A Most Likely to Grab Your Attention and Best Shot crowns in Create Magazine’s Editor’s Choice Awards. Engel conquered tens of other candidates to earn the title and was selected based on their originality and unstoppable design. The award-winning works dazzled the world in the Sep+Oct 2007 Northeast issue and the May+June 2007 Northeast issues respectively.

“Matthew McKee Photography produces consistently stimulating and innovative ads that never cease to impress,” said Create Magazine Editor Dana R. DeLapi. “Their work is always impressive and perfectly complements the message of Create Magazine.”

Create Magazine has seen some fantastic creativity grace its pages in the last year. From advertising to design, writing to gadgets, the Create Team has singled out the best of the best in a showcase for the May+June 2008 issue. With fun quirky categories like “Most Likely to Make you LOL,” the Editor’s Choice Awards provide recognition based on a different set of criteria.

The May+June issue of Create Magazine will be on newsstands on May 12, 2008. Create is also available online at www.createmagazine.com for Create Magazine subscribers and Create Network members.

This was one of the ads. The image was from one of the poster campaigns for the Footlight Club, during their production of Charles Buch's Psycho Beach Party.

Izzi's in the House!

2008-04-21T09:35:00.001-04:00

It is amazing to me to watch kids work at things that excite them.

They bring so much passion to a project. Sometimes they bring a little chaos as well, but not so here.

Izzi, who's parents are involved in productions at the Footlight Club, came to the shoot fully prepared. In fact, she asked Joy, my stylist and make up person on set, about where paint should be placed on her shirt to make it more effective and authentic.

She was fully engaged in her portrait and a great collaborator!

Industrial Lighting and Adapting Photography

2008-04-14T09:29:00.001-04:00

So, there we were, in a dark room, with a gazillion volts of electricity stored in huge banks of batteries. High voltage signage everywhere. A deep hum, charged with menace, replaces the whir of ventilation fans from the data center we were just shooting in.

We went from brilliant flat lighting to almost no lighting at all. And, the concept called for shooting into a dark cabinet, while the technician does... well, whatever they do in there. (When I asked him, he said, "Mostly, we try not to get zapped!")

I looked up and saw three different tubes of flourescent lighting, two tungsten cans and something that may have been a mercury vapor.

I looked at my assistant, who shrugged back at me, and I said, "Get the secret weapon!"

Under the technician's careful supervision, we tucked it back in the cabinet and plugged it in. Added a couple of gelled lights and reflectors around the outside and started shooting.

So, what is the secret weapon? An LED worklight from the hardware store.

Perfect for those hard to reach, tucked in spaces, to add dimensionality to any photoshoot!

The Knightly Arts

2008-04-04T18:02:00.001-04:00

Well, this was an exciting shoot! This guy is a practicing swordsman and has won awards around the world. He showed up with two suits of armor and lots of stories.

If you are interested, he runs a school for sword play and other martial arts involving edged weapons. Check it out at http://www.knightlyarts.com.

We are having a conversation about a series of marketing images for the school. Could be really interesting.

The rabbits have invaded my home!

2008-03-21T17:43:00.001-04:00

Omg, it's rabbit season again!

Every spring, they show up on a certain Sunday morning and leave little chocolate droppings around the house for the kiddies to find.

Jacked up on said chocolate, the kids spend the rest of the day climbing the pews at church and then fighting amongst themselves for the last morsel to stave off the inevitable sugar crash.

And, of course, there is always that one little foil covered confection that comes out, covered in dust bunnies and cobwebs, wearing last years (or the year before?) colors.

It was hiding behind the remote that was lost two tvs ago.