109. Product Placement - July 12-18, 2015
Deron-
Not real practical when you're climbing a six mile hill, but sure darn tasty if you want to forgo your time and sit down in the shade and indulge in some Strawberry Shortcake Jelly Bellys, or possibly Sour Green Apple... or Booger (if that's what you're into).
Not real practical when you're climbing a six mile hill, but sure darn tasty if you want to forgo your time and sit down in the shade and indulge in some Strawberry Shortcake Jelly Bellys, or possibly Sour Green Apple... or Booger (if that's what you're into).
Kevin-
Product Placement? In a defined sense of the term it might refer to a brand placing their product in a scene of a film or television show, highlighting that brand next to a star in the cast or showing it off in a terrific scene. For example think of the James Bond films that featured Aston Martin, or Lotus cars. Unfortunately I don’t have access to a recognizable star to place in a scene along with a product.
So my own definition of Product Placement is a photograph that shows a well-known product, placed and photographed in it’s proper context, whether it is typically found there, or it simply should be.
In cola land the world seems to be divided between those who have embraced The Joy of Pepsi, and those who are stuck wallowing in the terrible taste of Coke. But I admit, even Coke people are easier to understand and embrace than people who drink Diet Coke. The Joy of Aspartame? I think not!
Stored in a cupboard of the house I discovered 8 bottles of Coke and 7 bottles of Diet Coke, all well past their expiration dates. What can be worse than bad taste? Expired bad taste of course! Why was it still laying around? Because after one taste most people belch and switch brands, or simply decide to drink water, leaving the Coke to expire.
So there was only one thing left to do. Dispose of the poiso…, er beverages in a suitable way, by photographing them, in a proper context.
The wastebasket was positioned on a 4’x8' light table. Two studio flashes were underneath the light table illuminating both the table and the bottles from below. A third studio flash in a giant softbox was placed above and to the right. As the light table was already 3 feet high my tripod couldn’t reach the needed position, so I had to handhold the camera while standing a couple of steps up a ladder. Nikon D4s, Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 lens set to 55mm, ISO 100, f/8 @ 1/250th of a second (flash sync).
I hope that someone else carries this out to the trash before the weekly pick-up, so that I don’t have to touch it again.
Product Placement? In a defined sense of the term it might refer to a brand placing their product in a scene of a film or television show, highlighting that brand next to a star in the cast or showing it off in a terrific scene. For example think of the James Bond films that featured Aston Martin, or Lotus cars. Unfortunately I don’t have access to a recognizable star to place in a scene along with a product.
So my own definition of Product Placement is a photograph that shows a well-known product, placed and photographed in it’s proper context, whether it is typically found there, or it simply should be.
In cola land the world seems to be divided between those who have embraced The Joy of Pepsi, and those who are stuck wallowing in the terrible taste of Coke. But I admit, even Coke people are easier to understand and embrace than people who drink Diet Coke. The Joy of Aspartame? I think not!
Stored in a cupboard of the house I discovered 8 bottles of Coke and 7 bottles of Diet Coke, all well past their expiration dates. What can be worse than bad taste? Expired bad taste of course! Why was it still laying around? Because after one taste most people belch and switch brands, or simply decide to drink water, leaving the Coke to expire.
So there was only one thing left to do. Dispose of the poiso…, er beverages in a suitable way, by photographing them, in a proper context.
The wastebasket was positioned on a 4’x8' light table. Two studio flashes were underneath the light table illuminating both the table and the bottles from below. A third studio flash in a giant softbox was placed above and to the right. As the light table was already 3 feet high my tripod couldn’t reach the needed position, so I had to handhold the camera while standing a couple of steps up a ladder. Nikon D4s, Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 lens set to 55mm, ISO 100, f/8 @ 1/250th of a second (flash sync).
I hope that someone else carries this out to the trash before the weekly pick-up, so that I don’t have to touch it again.
Paul-
I decided, based on Deron’s feedback, to go with a product shot—as opposed to a product being placed in a larger scene in order to not-so-subtly call attention to itself and trigger a buying impulse on the part of the viewer. Clear as mud, right?
This is probably my first submission where I didn’t really know in advance what I was going for. (Although some of you may challenge this assertion.) I knew I wanted to promote the excellent line of Faber-Castell colored pencils that I used in artwork. At the same time, I was drinking in all the exiting news and imagery about the Pluto/Charon flyby. This comes in later, trust me. So (after way too long sharpening pencils), I started fooling with how to use a large stone sphere I have with the bunch of the pencils. After toying with different configurations, arrangements, perspectives, dumb stuff, etc. I finally settled on something that would look relatively straightforward, but at the same time still capture the viewer’s eye and interest. I took a large furry black blanket and spread it across the base of my copy stand. Then I took a few rolls of duct tape and used them as a pedestal to support a 4-quart glass measuring cup around which I had lined the pencils. (I didn’t want DOP to be a problem and catch the details of the blanket in the shot.) Placing the sphere in the middle—which is about 4” in diameter and packs a lot of heft—helped push the pencils relative flush around the inside edges. Still, there was a lot of tweaking to be done.
My initial exposures involved the use of one ceiling mounted overhead incandescent light which provided a little too much illumination but left the sphere looking pretty flat and fairly hot, too. I placed first one piece, then two pieces of plastic sheeting between the subject and light. It helped a little but I thought it still looked too flat and I was losing some richness of color.
That’s when I started thinking about Pluto again. The best Hubble’s been able to do is show us a small blurry quilt work patch of pixels. (No offense intended. That little guy orbits way above the plane of the elliptic at slightly more than 4.2 to 7.4 billion miles from our star depending where it is in its 247+ year orbital period.) New Horizons gave and will continue to give us a world—complete with the detail that showed remarkable surface features and, of course, its spherical shape. So I decided I’d try something different to try and capture that three-dimensionality too in my sphere. Still keeping up plastic sheeting up, I switched to shutter priority and at f/22 that gave me a nice 1.6 seconds to work with. Using a flash light during the exposures, I tried a bunch of shots sweeping it across different edges (close up and from varying distances) to see what would turn up. This is what I decided to use. I initially wondered if the fact that some areas around the total ring of pencils would show a little less illumination would bother me. It didn’t. I like of like it, as the image seems to float in space much as our lonely dwarf planet does.
As far as wowing some corporate types—if that was part of this theme’s intent—I could do something like you see in one of the attached images. (Note: Very quickly cobbled together.)
Our story so far: Shot at 1.6 sec.; f/22; shutter priority; ISO 180; patterned metering mode, 18-55mm lens set at 19mm; muted lighting from above and to the right, additional lighting from flashlight. Temperature, tint and other elements slightly tweaked in Lightroom and PhotoScape.
Twinkle, twinkle little planetesimal. Measuring you means using lots of decimals. You’re quiet, and small, and so very cryptic. As you take your time orbiting above the elliptic.
I decided, based on Deron’s feedback, to go with a product shot—as opposed to a product being placed in a larger scene in order to not-so-subtly call attention to itself and trigger a buying impulse on the part of the viewer. Clear as mud, right?
This is probably my first submission where I didn’t really know in advance what I was going for. (Although some of you may challenge this assertion.) I knew I wanted to promote the excellent line of Faber-Castell colored pencils that I used in artwork. At the same time, I was drinking in all the exiting news and imagery about the Pluto/Charon flyby. This comes in later, trust me. So (after way too long sharpening pencils), I started fooling with how to use a large stone sphere I have with the bunch of the pencils. After toying with different configurations, arrangements, perspectives, dumb stuff, etc. I finally settled on something that would look relatively straightforward, but at the same time still capture the viewer’s eye and interest. I took a large furry black blanket and spread it across the base of my copy stand. Then I took a few rolls of duct tape and used them as a pedestal to support a 4-quart glass measuring cup around which I had lined the pencils. (I didn’t want DOP to be a problem and catch the details of the blanket in the shot.) Placing the sphere in the middle—which is about 4” in diameter and packs a lot of heft—helped push the pencils relative flush around the inside edges. Still, there was a lot of tweaking to be done.
My initial exposures involved the use of one ceiling mounted overhead incandescent light which provided a little too much illumination but left the sphere looking pretty flat and fairly hot, too. I placed first one piece, then two pieces of plastic sheeting between the subject and light. It helped a little but I thought it still looked too flat and I was losing some richness of color.
That’s when I started thinking about Pluto again. The best Hubble’s been able to do is show us a small blurry quilt work patch of pixels. (No offense intended. That little guy orbits way above the plane of the elliptic at slightly more than 4.2 to 7.4 billion miles from our star depending where it is in its 247+ year orbital period.) New Horizons gave and will continue to give us a world—complete with the detail that showed remarkable surface features and, of course, its spherical shape. So I decided I’d try something different to try and capture that three-dimensionality too in my sphere. Still keeping up plastic sheeting up, I switched to shutter priority and at f/22 that gave me a nice 1.6 seconds to work with. Using a flash light during the exposures, I tried a bunch of shots sweeping it across different edges (close up and from varying distances) to see what would turn up. This is what I decided to use. I initially wondered if the fact that some areas around the total ring of pencils would show a little less illumination would bother me. It didn’t. I like of like it, as the image seems to float in space much as our lonely dwarf planet does.
As far as wowing some corporate types—if that was part of this theme’s intent—I could do something like you see in one of the attached images. (Note: Very quickly cobbled together.)
Our story so far: Shot at 1.6 sec.; f/22; shutter priority; ISO 180; patterned metering mode, 18-55mm lens set at 19mm; muted lighting from above and to the right, additional lighting from flashlight. Temperature, tint and other elements slightly tweaked in Lightroom and PhotoScape.
Twinkle, twinkle little planetesimal. Measuring you means using lots of decimals. You’re quiet, and small, and so very cryptic. As you take your time orbiting above the elliptic.
Jerry-
I decided to go with a kind of negative product placement. At first I was thinking of a small bottle of rot gut booze in an alleyway downtown but instead decided to go with the tobacco motif. Less chance of bumping into some unpleasant characters. Being a cheap kind of guy and not wanting to buy a cigarette pack, I googled Marlboro and found an image of an unfolded pack. With the aid of a color printer and some careful folding, I had me a pretty good looking facisimile and saved about $7. Next, I took it to a close by cemetery and tried several poses. It was near sunset which actually made everything look almost too nice - the grass was very green and not very zombie-ish. My favorite image is attached, I think it would be fun to keep the bright colors of the Marlboro pack and make the rest black & white.
D750 with 24-70 @ 62mm, f2.8 @ 1/400, ISO 200. The D750 is now on its way to Nikon for its second recall, this time for a shutter that creates "uneven" images as it streaks across the image sensor. The first time was for a sensor that sits under the mirror that was supposedly in a bad position and caused flare. Fortunately my sample never exhibited either of these two defects but heck, I gotta trust Nikon. Hope it comes back soon!!
I decided to go with a kind of negative product placement. At first I was thinking of a small bottle of rot gut booze in an alleyway downtown but instead decided to go with the tobacco motif. Less chance of bumping into some unpleasant characters. Being a cheap kind of guy and not wanting to buy a cigarette pack, I googled Marlboro and found an image of an unfolded pack. With the aid of a color printer and some careful folding, I had me a pretty good looking facisimile and saved about $7. Next, I took it to a close by cemetery and tried several poses. It was near sunset which actually made everything look almost too nice - the grass was very green and not very zombie-ish. My favorite image is attached, I think it would be fun to keep the bright colors of the Marlboro pack and make the rest black & white.
D750 with 24-70 @ 62mm, f2.8 @ 1/400, ISO 200. The D750 is now on its way to Nikon for its second recall, this time for a shutter that creates "uneven" images as it streaks across the image sensor. The first time was for a sensor that sits under the mirror that was supposedly in a bad position and caused flare. Fortunately my sample never exhibited either of these two defects but heck, I gotta trust Nikon. Hope it comes back soon!!
Don-
Birdweiser was shot in a garden in my courtyard. I used an empty Bud can and wrapped it around the feeder. They
just do not make beer cans like they used to because the can crinkled and was difficult to cut. I was trying to get
to the concept of the birds drinking beer. I swear I see some kind of shock on the look of the bird.
Shot at 1/1600th, ISO400, f/5.6 and a 70-200mm lens with a 2X Teleconverter so the focal was 400mm
Birdweiser was shot in a garden in my courtyard. I used an empty Bud can and wrapped it around the feeder. They
just do not make beer cans like they used to because the can crinkled and was difficult to cut. I was trying to get
to the concept of the birds drinking beer. I swear I see some kind of shock on the look of the bird.
Shot at 1/1600th, ISO400, f/5.6 and a 70-200mm lens with a 2X Teleconverter so the focal was 400mm
Byron-
This photo captures a moment in time when the lovely Mrs. Braton took a short break from shopping to sit on the porch and sip a Fresca. My initial thought was to have the Sun shining on her giving a nice separation from the background. We weren't able to arrive home until after the Sun went behind the neighbors trees. I decided to simulate the Sunlight and place a flash just outside of the porch on the far end. I snapped the diffuser on and aimed it directly at Erleen. It gave the desired effect. I had hoped to reshoot this on Thursday or Friday with actual Sunlight but the thick cloud cover prevented that from happening.
ISO 100, 45mm, f/5.3, 1/60 sec white balance set to daylight.
This photo captures a moment in time when the lovely Mrs. Braton took a short break from shopping to sit on the porch and sip a Fresca. My initial thought was to have the Sun shining on her giving a nice separation from the background. We weren't able to arrive home until after the Sun went behind the neighbors trees. I decided to simulate the Sunlight and place a flash just outside of the porch on the far end. I snapped the diffuser on and aimed it directly at Erleen. It gave the desired effect. I had hoped to reshoot this on Thursday or Friday with actual Sunlight but the thick cloud cover prevented that from happening.
ISO 100, 45mm, f/5.3, 1/60 sec white balance set to daylight.