CRASH COURSE
ESSENTIAL PHOTO SKILLS MADE EASY
James Paterson shows you how to create a stunning and gravity-defying still-life with watering cans
If you want to bring an extra level of dynamism to your still life or product photos, why not try playing with gravity and motion like this? With a combination of shooting skills, precise placement and a little Photoshop magic, images like this are within the reach of anyone with a camera. As for the lighting, we used three flashes to light our scene here, but if you want to keep things simple you could forego the flash altogether and use the ambient light from a window. Over the next few pages, we’ll go behind the scenes to see how a gravity-defying still life can be achieved. From the lighting setup to the careful posing to the simple post-processing, we’ll look at each stage in the workflow, and explain key photography skills that can prove invaluable for all kinds of creative projects.
Our budget here didn’t stretch to 21 watering cans plus five assistants to pour the water, so instead we shot our set of just three watering cans in stages over several frames, using a tripod to keep the frames in alignment. This is one of the advantages of having control over the lighting, the positioning of the subjects and the framing: it gives us the freedom to shoot our image in several stages, making sure one part of the frame is perfect before moving on to the next. Once the set of images are captured, it’s a fairly simple task to bring everything together in Photoshop.
HOW TO SET UP THE STUDIO
Get set up for creative still-life photographs lit with flash
1 CAMERA SETTINGS
When using off-camera flash it’s usually best to set your exposure to Manual mode with ISO100. First, set the shutter speed to 1/200 sec and aperture to f/8, then take a test shot and either adjust the power of the lights or the aperture until the exposure looks right. Here we had our camera set to 1/200 sec, f/5.6, ISO100.
2 TRIPOD
We arranged our three red watering cans, then poured water into the top one so that it would trickle into the opening in the lower can. Once captured, we could move the lowest can and string it up in a higher position, then repeat the process. A tripod is essential to keep all the frames in alignment.
3 TOWELS AND BUCKETS
Messing around with water when using high-powered studio flashes can be a recipe for disaster, so we made sure to keep our equipment and wires well away from the water, with plenty of towels on hand to mop up splashes between shots, and several buckets placed to catch the falling water.
4 BACKDROP
A plain backdrop is usually the best choice for still-life work, as it places the attention on the subject. We taped a roll of blue paper to the wall – the masking tape is easily removed later in Photoshop. A dark backdrop like this helps
