Mastering Light: Final Outcome
- elle walker
- Apr 4, 2019
- 5 min read
Updated: Apr 29, 2019
Client brief
For my final outcome I had decided to use Schuh, a footwear retailer, as my client. The customers appear to be in the range of 16-35, catering to customers who want the latest styles of fashion-based footwear; performance footwear does not appear to be sold by the company. Schuh sells c80 different brands online and in their brick-and-mortar stores.
For this outcome, the products were a pair of Reebok Hayasu trainers for women and Nike Tn Air trainers for men.
Equipment
Studio
Fujifilm X-T20
18-55 mm lens
Two Pixapro softboxes
A variety of light modifiers e.g. a reflector, torch
Multiple backdrops with different colours
Variety of props e.g., mirror, different coloured textured papers
Reebok Hayasu trainers
Location
Fujifilm X-T20
18-55 mm lens
Backdrops (at home)
Reflector
Torch light
Natural light
Reebok Hayasu trainers (at home)
Nike Tn Air trainers (in the park)
Inspiration
My research led me to a great variety YouTube videos, websites which gave tips on how to shoot footwear and footwear retailers. One of the YouTube videos was by a young American photographer called Evan Ranft. Ranft has had Epitome, (https://epitomeatl.com) a footwear retailer, as a client for several years. In one of his videos (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1s8wibcRTE) he offered practical advice as to how to create a set of dynamic images for clients. This included taking cropped photographs of portions of the trainers showing details like logos, the tread and so forth. For online customers it helps them have a greater sense of what they are purchasing; in-person customers in a store will have the ability to handle the trainer to inspect it at their leisure.
© Evan Ranft, YouTube
The studio shoot
I planned on creating an image to use for e-commerce purposes and a set of images which would sit well on the website home page.
The e-commerce image was very straightforward: a single trainer shot against a white backdrop which fits with the clients’ e-commerce pages.
The images for the home page are vibrant and punchy, designed to tempt the customer into browsing further into the website and possibly on to making a purchase. Some of the images would be shot against bright backdrops with the remainder using post-processing to add colourful backgrounds and textures. I used some textured yellow paper to add visual interest to the pink backdrop.
The photograph of the Nike Air Force trainer, as seen on the Schuh website was the inspiration for my photographs with the colourful backgrounds. The Nike image has the large sweep of shadow underneath the sole, whereas faint shadow can be seen on the image below.
Although it does add depth to the image, I wanted to keep the shadow to a minimum as I didn't want it to detract from the product itself and I wanted the colour scheme to remain quite minimalist.The shadow works in the Nike image above as the dark shadow balances with the vibrant pink, red and orange.
The location shoots
I wanted to shoot the trainers in a park, which would show the relationship between the trainers and fun activities like skateboarding, dancing, dog-walking and the like. I had a particular spot in mind which had several iron structures in it, which would provide interesting shadows. The location was Eastside City Park, near Millennium Point in Birmingham. As luck would have it, the day of the shoot was destined to be the last bright sunny day for a further week or so, so I took the Nike Tn Air trainers and camera equipment to the location, arriving there at about 2pm. This was just in time for the harsh noon sunlight to have passed whilst still having the chance for some long shadows to be available.
The inspiration came from an assortment of images seen online.
Health and safety
All studio equipment had been PAT tested within the past 12 months, so was fit for purpose.
My own camera had been serviced on 4 March 2019 by Fujifilm at The Photography Show. There were no faults recorded, so I was happy that there would be no risks using it.
As far as shooting at home (for the collage) was concerned, there were no major risks. I was shooting against a large window to capture the morning light. It was at a time of day when I was the only person in the house so I knew I would not be disturbed. The collage was created by placing the trainers on the floor on the backdrop (floordrop?) and shooting overhead. There were no high surfaces that objects could fall off from. The only potential risk was tripping over the tripod, but that was positioned close to the wall. I used a cable release and the articulated screen as Live View to ensure that I didn’t have to move the tripod unnecessarily.
I didn’t require employer’s liability insurance as I technically didn’t ‘employ’ anyone. My son was my model for one of the shoots (I didn’t use these images for the final outcome), but should anything have happened, like tripping or falling, he is covered under my personal health insurance policy.
Evaluation
I found this to be one of the most rewarding shoots I’ve done to date. I was happy with the images shot with the pink backdrop and yellow paper as the complimentary colour scheme is very eye-catching and would definitely fit the client brief of punchy images for the home page. As well as the location and studio shoots mentioned above, I conducted a further location shoot. This was actually done prior to the park shoot, but as it didn’t turn out as I would have hoped, the park shoot was Plan B.
The Plan A shoot was to have my 26-year-old son (again, meeting the demographic of the clients, thus fitting the client brief) wearing a popular brand of footwear at night. The location was near the lake in front of Resorts World at the National Exhibition Centre. It was around 7 pm on a Friday evening in late March, which meant that the neon signs would be lit and reflected in the lake, which I thought would add more background interest. There were two reasons why I didn’t use the images:
1. I used a flash gun, which created quite harsh, flat lighting
2. Rats. There were rats in the bushes. I assumed the rustling noises in the bushes were from the wild birds who live on the lake nesting for the night. I was wrong. So very, very wrong. Neither myself or my son are fans of rats so we basically picked up our bags and ran away as fast as we could without looking back. That was the end of Plan A.
One of my favourite images was the trainers against the pink backdrop propped up against a mirror but unfortunately it wasn’t sharp. This was a big disappointment as I was very excited to be able to use this in the presentation and as one of my final images. This is a perfect example of how this could have been rectified during the shoot if I had been able to shoot tethered.
Inspiration v my not sharp image (unedited)
The images with the colourful, graphic and textured backgrounds were processed in Photoshop. I can see how my skills are improving, as I completed these with almost no trouble at all. It became quite therapeutic at one point, repeating the steps time and again for each image until I didn’t need to refer to my notes anymore. The difficulty came with editing the collage photograph. I didn’t have the necessary skills to edit the background in the manner that I wanted - to repeat the brickwork pattern all over - so I had to leave it as it was.
In conclusion, each shoot was relatively straightforward. The most problematic area was time management. I had left sufficient time in my schedule for the Plan B shoot but then underestimated how much time I would need for post-processing. Whilst it was all completed in a timely manner, I could have avoided a lot of last minute panic had I allowed myself longer to complete it.
Lighting plans
Final images
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