ola corneal compadraes!
Back in the studio once again. This time to light my favourite product, coffee. It smelled great in my section of the studio.
The gear was the same, the studio was the same, but the vibe was totally different. Instead of shouting “you’re a tiger” at gorgeous models, I was having numerous discussions about lighting.
mmmmmm coffee
No set lighting on this piece, so we had to do some free styling. I wanted a completely white background, so I had to light my backdrop really well. I used the harshest light at my disposal and just blew out the backboard with light. It worked well. This allowed me to move a more muted key light around to get the proper lighting on my coffee.
Much of the work though I did in post.
The lefthand image is that of the untreated media file. Well, I did some overexposing to really get that background as white as I wanted it. But the righthand image I dodged around the bottom edges to remove the gradient. I liked the gradient at the time that I shot it, but decided it would just keep it clean and do a white background. I still wanted the shadow on the jar because it gave the image more depth.
I burned the jar and coffee bag to emphasis the writing and make sure the whole thing wasn’t too washed out from the overexposure.
When it came to helping Parminder with his shot, things got weird. He was looking for a completely dark background, so we needed to use a boom to light it completely from the top. It turned out really well and had us thinking very hard about light and dark, so be sure to gaze in wonderment when you see it.
apg images 