25 (Asics)

I recently turned 25. **Pauses for cheers** Thank you, thank you, haha. I have been hitting the gym a lot, losing weight, and toning up. For my birthday, my girlfriend (who is a Masters student in Exercise Science and Personal Trainer, among her other amazing qualities), gave me the perfect “from her to me” gift: my first pair of real running shoes! So, of course, one of my first thoughts was: “I should do a product shoot for these shoes!”  Below is the rest of what happened at my shoot at 1:30am on the 13th, haha.

This was really “let’s just go for it and have fun” kind of a shoot that started out without any real plan. That’s usually a horrible way to do a shoot and something I wouldn’t ordinarily recommend, but I find that with no one else involved (i.e., hair and makeup artist, models, creative directors, etc) it’s just fine because you aren’t going to waste anyone else’s time while you experiment and fine tune what you want you shoot to be. Basically, the shoes don’t mind how long I spend tinkering and setting up lights!

Since this was a just-for-fun type shoot, I decided to see what I could get away with using just what’s in my bedroom for props. I ended up taking my closet door off the closet, laying it down on my bed, and pushing it up against the wall.

Setup

Photography is about painting with light. (Not to be confused with "light painting"). Sometimes I strive to be Rembrandt and sometimes I finger-paint.  Since this shoot was the latter, the lighting explanation is kind of laid out in the “stream of consciousness” manner; it was thought of while it happened.

Tech specs

I started off with a Profoto gridded 25 deg beauty dish at exposure. Then I remembered liking the top light effect of some of my other product shots. So I stuck a 5 deg grid right above the shoe, set to the lowest power (since it was up so close), and snapped a shot. Not bad for a start. I decided that I really like nice hard rim lights too, so I sat one on the table and aimed it at the heal. It was a bit too spread out, so I out the 5 deg gid and it worked like a charm. Then I wanted a similar look at the toe and did almost the same thing there, but at a different angel. Turns out the top light wasn’t doing much and the background was a little dark, so I turned the light to point at the background and that really gave the photos some pop.

Main Light - Gridded Beauty Dish

Top Light Added - Gridded Zoom Reflector

Two Side Lights - Gridded Zoom Reflectors

All 4 - But NOT the final setup

I tinkered around with the power levels on the grids and just did a “salt to taste”, adding here, subtracting there, until I was happy. Usually in .3 stop increments (the Profoto D1’s are adjustable in .1 stop increments).

Results

Final Photo

Final Photo

There are a couple more photos in the products portfolio.

I love what came out. I love the slightly textured background and the small speckled grains on the “ground”.  The ground and background are nice and clean and crisp but still have a little texture; the kind of environment I would expect a running shoe to be in - like a brand new track, clean, crisp, but with a touch of interesting texture.

Sometimes you have a plan and sometimes your plan is to make one up on the spot. As long as you think about if that is appropriate for your situation, either one of them can be effective at different times.

Side note: unfortunately these exact shoes had to go back to the store.  They ended up being a half size too big. Whoever gets them next will have no idea about this awesome photo shoot they had! :p

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