http://www.akelstudio.com/blog/product-photography-lighting-it-is-simple-when-you-know-how/

tips

http://www.digital-photography-school.com/getting-started-in-toy-photography

The Art of Toy Photography

Toys represent our imagination, our aspirations and our innocent, childhood fantasies. Everyone is still a child at heart. The camera, along with our creativity, will allow us to capture these moments and share it with everyone. The challenge of Toy Photography is to make the toy “lifelike”; to remove that “plastic-feel” to it and to make it more human. Most Toy Photographers put their subjects into everyday, mundane scenes. You are limited only by your imagination.

Here are a few tips and notes to help you get started;

• Tell A Story – Each toy has its own background story. Be they be action figures, dolls, superheroes or giant mecha (robots). Each product line has a rich “origin” to it. Use these elements to either create thematic or wacky themes. An example would be Star Wars toys interacting with everyday objects in your kitchen… or how about small, green army men having a life of their own and invading your work-station when you leave the office. There are endless possibilities.
• Make them more human – Pose and compose your shots as if you were shooting a real human being. You may apply the elements you learned in portraiture to this. You can also combine and experiment with landscape photography and then apply your toys to all of nature’s splendor. You can start in your own backyard using natural sunlight. You can’t get a cheaper or better light source than that

Read more: http://www.digital-photography-school.com/getting-started-in-toy-photography#ixzz1LsxoExjT

toy photography

http://www.mccartyphotoworks.com

http://www.photopoly.net/5-tips-for-better-toy-photography/

Photographing toys can be lots of fun. You will learn a lot of things while practicing it. As you are in control of everything, you will not only learn about composition and lighting, you will also acquire some skills of staging and story telling. You don’t need sophisticated equipment to achieve great results. You can do wonders with natural light and a point and shoot camera with a macro option. It all really lays on your imagination and of course your “models”.  All you need to do is to grab a toy , a camera and to just have fun. Here are some tips to help you get started with toy photography.

Photo by sⓘndy

Clean Them:

Your eyes might not notice the little dust particles on a figurine’s arm or leg. But, after taking the photo it will be obvious on your computer screen and may ruin a beautiful shot. So, before beginning your photo shoot, make sure to properly clean and wipe all the toys you are using. Inspect them thoroughly to be sure no dust is left on them and try to shoot in a clean environment in order to guarantee no dust is cast on them during the shoot. You can always remove unwanted elements in post processing. But, why the fuss if you can avoid it.

Make them look big:

Photo by Ole Houen

Since you are photographing tiny objects, it will be more interesting to give those toys a human dimension and to make them seem bigger than their actual size. In order to achieve such an effect, you can use the simple technique of getting close to your subject as much as possible to fill the frame with it and to take the photo from a low angle to give it that ant’s eye view effect. You can also place your toys in an environment that would help in making them look bigger. For example, you can place them inside a miniature scale model of a building, or a doll house.

Tell a story:

Photo by Yassine Hakimi

Taking simple direct shots of your toys is not as interesting as playing the role of a film director and creating a whole scene where the toys are your actors. It might be hard at the beginning but once you start letting your imagination loose, you won’t be able to stop. A good way to start is by trying to recreate a scene you encounter in your everyday life. After that you can move to the recreation of a movie scene, or the representation of an idiom. Once you grow comfortable with staging and story telling, you will begin innovating and creating fresh and new ideas.

Take them everywhere:

Photo by Yassine Hakimi

I always, have the above gorilla figure with me, everywhere I go. You never know what you might find along your way. So, it’s always a good idea to have a small toy with you all the time, in order to grab the opportunity anytime it might occur. Look out for interesting settings and light that you pass by on the way to work, school, etc. This is where you can give full potential to your story telling skills.

Think out of the box:

One last thought, experiment, experiment, experiment.

Don’t limit yourself with the previous guidelines and don’t hesitate to follow ideas that might seem stupid at first. If the idea doesn’t’ work out, nobody will be hurt, but if it does work out, you will be the creator of a masterpiece. With the huge number of toy photographers out there, only those who come up with new concepts and ideas get noticed.

Here are some inspiring examples of toy photography:

Photo by Hervé KERNEIS

Photo by Stéfan

Photo by sⓘndy

Photo by sandcastlematt

Photo by Fanboy30

Photo by PixelPlacebo

Photo by Simon Pais

Photo by Kyle May

You may want to take a look at the following related posts:

product tips

You probably see products in magazines and advertising everyday without even thinking about where these images actually came from; well someone in a studio probably shot them, and you can too. Shooting products can be a challenging and rewarding experience, whether it’s food to clothes or handbags to jewellery, each scenario requires a slightly different a approach, so how can you get similar results to the pros? Read on.

Gear

Depending on what you’re going to shoot, you’ll need the right gear. To start with, use a good lens, possibly a mid zoom, as these tend to be more flexible, allowing you to set up in one spot and zoom in, rather than moving all the time. A fast lens (around f/3.5 or less) will help throw your background out of focus more easily, and helps if your lighting isn’t up to scratch. Also a tripod can be handy for setting up and taking lots of shots, but sometimes, hand-held is the only way to go – I’ve found my image stabilized lens definitely helps in these situations.

Get some whiteness

The first thing you’re going to need is a white background to shoot the products against, you’ll notice that the majority of products are shot against white backgrounds as this takes any distractions away, so the only thing to look at is the product! Shooting against a white background also means the product is easier to ‘cut out’ in Photoshop if needed. Try using a white sheet, or pieces of white cardboard to create a mini studio, alternatively try a black background.

Lights

Lighting is pretty important in shooting products, the idea most of the time is to get the product fairly evenly lit, avoiding harsh shadows, so make sure you set up in a room with bright lights, or has bright ambient light coming through the windows. And when taking your shots use a flash as well to fill in the shadows.

Framing

Simple compositions tend to work better with products, so try to get on the same level, and zoom in to get as much in as possible. Avoid shooting from strange angles as well, for example if shooting clothes, then shoot from front-on to the item so that there’s no distortion due to perspective.

Product Position

When shooting against a background, you don’t actually want it to be in focus, so to start with, place the product a bit in front of the background, then set your camera to the widest aperture, (or 1 to 2 stops above widest) this way, if all goes well, you’ll have your product in sharp focus, with a white, out of focus background. You may have to experiment a bit to get it right.

Make it your own

When you’re done with all the technicalities, its time to put your own stamp on the images you take; play around with product placement and focus, and take as many images as you think is necessary; its always best to get a good selection and choose the one you want, rather than not getting the shot and having to re-shoot.

Post Process

Processing your images afterwards can be almost as important as taking the images; if the light wasn’t quite right, then it can be fixed to a certain extent at the end, so with most of my images there is always at least a small degree of processing, be it tweaking the white balance, boosting colours, or cropping. My work-flow usually goes something like this: Import images, erase dust spots, remove noise, increase exposure if necessary, tweak white balance, colour boost/change contrast if necessary/fill light (my most used function), and sharpen. You’ll probably find you may spend as much time processing as you do taking the pictures themselves. (At least I do – I’m a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to photography!)

If you enjoy this sort of photography then there’s scope to sell these sorts of images for retail websites etc, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned if you want to sell your images, and that is know your market, and know how to market. Its all well and good having mastered taking these sort of photos, but selling them is definitely another story!

difficulties

recently i have been struggling to find new and interesting things to photograph and have been finding it hard to engage myself in taking the photos as i feel i am lacking inspiration, i think that this maybe because i hadn't set myself a clear target of what i wanted to achieve. i have taken my photographs over several weeks and have several that i like but as i have never needed to have 10 final images i am finding it hard to produce this  many.

Stewarts park

i missed my studio session that i had booked 27th april at 12:30
i managed to take some photographs at my local park, Stewart's park has statues and monuments and totem poles, and i thought i could get some nice photographs whilst it was sunny, but once i got there the park had changed a lot and was undergoing changes which involved lots or workers diggers and fenced areas. i tried my best to get the best photographs i could.

28.04.1

second shoot

today i plan to shoot a variety of things, i feel i am struggling with my ideas and coming up with slogans to make them a advertisement product

i have a few ideas although i feel they may  not work:
clear umbrella- water droplets on it- save it for a rainy day
Buddha Lucky Larger-show other Buddhas and 'Lucky' slogan possibly symbols
Fish eye camera- with booklet
Walkman phone with box and head phones
brownie camera and new camera
http://www.urbanindustry.co.uk/blog.asp?func=show&id=260