Still Life critique, please.

Dangerspouse

Senior Member
Hi everybody -

Even though I'm very new to DSLR's, I somehow landed a job as product photographer to a California winery. They are shipping me out an example of every bottle they release this year, and I get money plus the bottle for every shot they accept.

I just got my first shipment last week, with instructions that they wanted a low key photo of the label, close up. I took a quick test photo of one bottle and sent it off to them asking it my composition was ok. They said it was, and liked it enough to put it up in their web catalog immediately (I would have preferred they didn't, because I noticed the bottom of the label was slightly ragged and I wanted to fix it. You can see it here: Davis Family Vineyards - 2016 Zinfandel, Old Vine, Russian River Valley ).

After accepting that photo I got another email requesting an additional creative shot for each bottle. These will be blown up for posters and glossy handouts. The first one they asked be a still life, but after that I'm being left to my own creative devices.

This is the composition I came up with the other day, using ingredients I already had on hand. As I mentioned, I'm new to DSLR's and have virtually no experience post processing. I only just purchased Lightroom a few days ago, and am still in the "what the hell is this??" phase. So this, like all my other pictures, has just the minimal automatic processing that my default computer viewer allows: "Auto Sharpen", "Auto Exposure", and "Auto Contrast".

Please give me some honest criticism, with an eye towards the rules of Product Photography (if there are any). As a newbie I don't own much equipment yet, just a handful of mostly kit lenses, a pair of softbox lights, and a light tent for my wife's macro product work. But any suggestions regarding technique will be gratefully accepted. Thanks!

Zin still life 2.jpg
 

hark

Administrator
Staff member
Super Mod
Contributor
I'll be honest - the composition just doesn't do anything for me. It's too cluttered and too much cut off of every item in the image. Have you searched on flickr or 500px to get composition ideas? Do you get to open the bottle and photograph wine in a glass, or does it need to be returned to them unopened? If they don't allow you to open it, my suggestion is when you make a sale and they comp you a bottle, take some photos with the wine poured into glasses along with the bottle. Then show them what you came up with. Maybe it will generate additional sales.

Nice job on their web site label image. :encouragement:
 

Dangerspouse

Senior Member
I'll be honest - the composition just doesn't do anything for me. It's too cluttered and too much cut off of every item in the image. Have you searched on flickr or 500px to get composition ideas? Do you get to open the bottle and photograph wine in a glass, or does it need to be returned to them unopened? If they don't allow you to open it, my suggestion is when you make a sale and they comp you a bottle, take some photos with the wine poured into glasses along with the bottle. Then show them what you came up with. Maybe it will generate additional sales.

Nice job on their web site label image. :encouragement:

Thank you very much for that, I appreciate you taking the time to give me your thoughts.

I'm not familiar with flickr (is it "flicker"?) or 500px, but when I get out of work later I'll do a search for them at home. Thanks!

I should have made it clear in my OP that I get to keep all the bottles they send me regardless. So I'm free to open them at my discretion. I'd be hesitant to do so however, because if I do take a picture and they don't like it, I wouldn't be able to do a re-take with a full bottle if needed. However I was thinking of asking their permission to try a few open bottle shots, and if they don't like them perhaps they could send me a replacement bottle. We'll see. (I could also take a pic of glasses with wine in them, but crop the shot so the neck of the bottle is not visible. They'll have no way of seeing the bottle hasn't been opened, and the wine in the glasses is from elsewhere.)

Thank you again for the critique of my composition. And I'm glad you liked the label image. Whew! ;)
 

Fred Kingston

Senior Member
I would have included a long shot of the bottle with a nice stem crystal glass of the wine and the other stuff behind that… Other than the partially obscured label, it’s difficult to tell what exactly is the product in that picture.

I’d also ask them, when they send you the wine bottles, to also send you some(a) labels by itself so you can photograph it in a flat plain for their web site… rather than a closeup of a label on a bottle.
 

Dangerspouse

Senior Member
I would have included a long shot of the bottle with a nice stem crystal glass of the wine and the other stuff behind that… Other than the partially obscured label, it’s difficult to tell what exactly is the product in that picture.

I’d also ask them, when they send you the wine bottles, to also send you some(a) labels by itself so you can photograph it in a flat plain for their web site… rather than a closeup of a label on a bottle.

Great idea - ideas - Fred. Thank you very much for all that. I'll see if they can send me out labels. You're right, that would certainly be easier to shoot.
 

Dangerspouse

Senior Member
IMO IMAGE IS NOT SHARP, (front of bread in focus, back out of focus).

Hi Nikonpup - yeah, but I have to admit that was intentional. Kinda like a portrait shot, you know? The whole "wide aperture and blur the background with shallow DOF" thing. I guess it didn't work here though, huh? I did send a second picture along with even shallower depth of field, but I thought it was too much:

DFW Still Life shallow DOF.jpg

Ah well, I'm still learning. That's why I'm glad I'm here - to learn from you guys. Thanks much for the comment!
 

Moab Man

Senior Member
Too cluttered and busy for me. I'm not sure what the point is. When I say that, I don't mean it out of sarcasm, I mean what am I supposed to be drawn into? Which goes back to being too busy.
 

Dangerspouse

Senior Member
Too cluttered and busy for me. I'm not sure what the point is. When I say that, I don't mean it out of sarcasm, I mean what am I supposed to be drawn into? Which goes back to being too busy.

"Cluttered" seems to be the common criticism here, so I'd better take it to heart. Thanks a lot for extending the advice, I really appreciate it. I'm glad I posted this here, as I'm really learning something.
 

Chris@sabor

Senior Member
I think the overall concept is good. Agree with clutter comment. Stem in foreground bad and the foreground is to sharp. I would have used F4 and put a little separation between foreground and the subject. It's important to make sure the viewer knowns what the subject is. Some recommended poured wine in a wine glass, sure, but if you have many bottles to shoot, some interesting, non traditional shots may be appreciated. Imagine their whole catalog, they'll want some variety. Perhaps a traditional shot and a more creative one for each bottle. Then the client can decide. Ultimately, we don't matter, your client is the boss so you should try to provide according to their taste. Good effort!
 

Moab Man

Senior Member
"Cluttered" seems to be the common criticism here, so I'd better take it to heart. Thanks a lot for extending the advice, I really appreciate it. I'm glad I posted this here, as I'm really learning something.

This is a great forum for learning and real learning critiques.
 

Dangerspouse

Senior Member
I think the overall concept is good. Agree with clutter comment. Stem in foreground bad and the foreground is to sharp. I would have used F4 and put a little separation between foreground and the subject. It's important to make sure the viewer knowns what the subject is. Some recommended poured wine in a wine glass, sure, but if you have many bottles to shoot, some interesting, non traditional shots may be appreciated. Imagine their whole catalog, they'll want some variety. Perhaps a traditional shot and a more creative one for each bottle. Then the client can decide. Ultimately, we don't matter, your client is the boss so you should try to provide according to their taste. Good effort!

Lol. Seems we have a consensus: TOO CLUTTERED! Got it. Point taken :)

Hey Chris, thanks very much for adding suggestions for how I could make this shot better. It all sounds like excellent advice, particularly the overall admonition to keep their entire category in mind. You're right: the client is indeed the ultimate arbiter, and I gotta go with what they request over other - perhaps technically "better" - advice from anyone else, fellow photographers included. That's the way it is in my RL job, so I'm quite used to holding my tongue and following orders like a good soldier.

Anyway, even if it's just for my own edification I'm going to put some of your suggestions to the test (once I buy more ingredients, *buuuurp*) and see how they turn out. Thanks again!

:encouragement:
 

Moab Man

Senior Member
You're right: the client is indeed the ultimate arbiter, and I gotta go with what they request over other - perhaps technically "better" - advice from anyone else, fellow photographers included.

LOL, it can be the worse photo, but if it's what the client wants it's what they get.

BTW, I like you nickname Dangerspouse.
 

Marcel

Happily retired
Staff member
Super Mod
Since you're selling wine, the bottle and label deserve more space in your composition. Shiny things (cheese knife) distracts and shapes that stick out (pepper stem) also attracts the eyes and distract from the bottle.

Lear how to use lightroom in order to be able to create shadows around the bottle and control out of focus areas. Since you say in your profile that you don't mind someone editing your images, I took a bit of my time to show you how this could be improved with a bit of post processing. It's no close to perfect, but seeing less lets me concentrate a bit more on the bottle. If you do mind my edit, let me know and I'll delete it without any problem.
Zin still life 2-2.jpg
 

Dangerspouse

Senior Member
Since you're selling wine, the bottle and label deserve more space in your composition. Shiny things (cheese knife) distracts and shapes that stick out (pepper stem) also attracts the eyes and distract from the bottle.

Lear how to use lightroom in order to be able to create shadows around the bottle and control out of focus areas. Since you say in your profile that you don't mind someone editing your images, I took a bit of my time to show you how this could be improved with a bit of post processing. It's no close to perfect, but seeing less lets me concentrate a bit more on the bottle. If you do mind my edit, let me know and I'll delete it without any problem.

I don't mind at all. Quite the contrary, thank you very much for the advice and for taking the time to give me an exellent edit example. I see what you mean about processing to make the bottle more front and center as the point of attention. I appreciate it very much!!

Funny, I came here just now to post an edit to the picture of my own to see if anyone thought I was on the right track. This is just a simple crop of the first picture:

DFW Still Life Crop.jpg

I think it looks like yours, but just a bit more crop.

Lol. "Learn how to use Lightroom" is all well and good, and I am indeed trying to, but you're looking at a guy who doesn't use a computer for anything other than the most basic "watch puppy videos and post on forums" tasks. I mean, I don't even have a cell phone. So trying to leap from "Minesweeper" to "Layers", "Presets" and "Tone Curves" in one fell swoop feels like I'm trying to decipher the German Enigma code while blindfolded. It doesn't help that my 12 year old computer apparently isn't up to the task, and in the week since I've had Lightroom installed it's crashed more often than a drunk Group-B rally driver.

But I'm determined to get it. And hopefully I will....before they fire me :)

Thanks again - really!

:encouragement:
 
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