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• Live Model Shoot

Shooting a model is considered a staple for most photographers. Models are photographed for portraits, advertising, etc. Fashion Photography course is a great way to gain experience and practice live model photo-shoot.

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• Gray Card

A gray card is a flat object of a neutral gray color that derives from a flat reflectance spectrum.

A grey card is designed to help photographers to adjust their exposure and white balance settings consistently by providing a reference point.

This reference point will set a white balance, or color balance, point for a particular image set and all images captured thereafter.

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• Digital light meter

A light meter is a device used to measure the amount of light. Typically a light meter will include either a digital or analog electronic circuit, which allows the photographer to determine which shutter speed and f-number should be selected for optimum exposure, given a certain lighting situation and film speed.

A digital light meter enables a professional photographer to control the following:

-The low-light capability of a camera; better than the built-in light meter.
-Flash readings for managing multiple lights and better synchronization between keys and fills.

PRODUCT & FOOD PHOTOGRAPHY COURSE

• THE KEY TOPICS OF PRODUCT & FOOD PHOTOGRAPHY COURSE

• INTRODUCTION TO FOOD AND PRODUCT
  As various other genres of photography, food and product photography have also evolved with time. There are various types of food and product photography and all of them require a different kind of preparation, execution, and post-production. The idea is to first understand where food and product photography stand against various other types of photography.
• Idea creation and pitch making
  If there is any specific kind of product or food, for example, a jewelry collection or any location-based cuisine; how to shoot them in a connecting series and what elements to keep in common while shooting them plays an important role. Coming up with ideas to shoot them and pitching them to the clients is equally important as any other stage of the photographic process
• Jewelry Shooting
  Shooting jewelry is as tricky as it can be. Whether you are shooting jewelry for cataloging or you are creating an ad campaign, shooting jewelry can be a tedious job. The size of the product, the quality of the jewelry, its textures and elements, all of it plays a crucial role. Shooting jewelry is a task in itself.
• BASICS LIGHTING IN FOOD AND PRODUCT
  There are various categories in this type of photography itself, understanding what light is good and what light isn’t used at all while shooting these items or commodities is equally important. There are basic lighting styles to shoot them for online selling and there are more complex lighting styles to shoot them for magazines or advertising.
• Catalog photography
  Catalog photography is done to show a series of a product on any platform, be it for selling it on E-commerce or for presenting them to clients for any organization or any magazine. For food photography, the same could be done for online food delivery applications or menu designing. These are shot against a simple plain background and not much of propping is required for catalog shooting.
• Conceptual shooting
  Banner shooting and campaign shooting go hand in hand. Both of such shooting techniques require pre-planning, propping, background selection, lighting styles to be decided beforehand. A mood board can also be made to make the workflow easier and more efficient. Conceptual shooting also lets the photographer have a decent degree of creativity & liberty and hence it can be much more rewarding in terms of final output and could be mutually beneficial for both the client and the photographer.
• Requirement and equipment
  
  Shooting these products requires pre-planning, execution, and post-production. There are props required, backgrounds and a lot of miscellaneous items to shoot both food and product differently. These requirements and equipment are also the very product or food item based.
• E-commerce shootng using a lIGHT cube
  This is the most common and widespread used technique to shoot products for an e-commerce platform. A light cube box comes in various sizes, depending upon the product one can choose from many sizes available. A light cube box diffuses the light and makes it uniform from all sides to prevent uneven highlights and reflections. It also helps to remove any shadows that are falling on the product due to uneven light conditions or shape of the product.
• Product/food styling
  What should be the style of photography, lighting style and how to shoot, additional elements to include, locations to choose, background, propping, etc. are all included in styling. For example, if one is trying to shoot a cuisine, what all elements are to be included, how the plating would be done, what additional elements could be used, the cutlery to be chosen, what should be the side props and so many other things come into picture. Procuring everything before a shoot is as important as shooting it and styling lays the foundation of how a shoot would proceed further on.
• Preparing a look book
  Look books are designed to show how a collection of products or food items for any campaign comes together. Making a look book is an interesting way to showcase a collection of items being photographed. A look-book can be project-based and could also represent the entire product line for specific companies. Right from elements to include, fonts to choose, picture size and resolution everything comes into the picture.
• Banner shooting
  The banner shooting of products or food is usually done when they are to be printed on the boards or are going to be used for advertising them on magazines or any online website or web promotion. These shots are usually conceptual, they require some pre-planning depending upon the type of product or category they belong to. Gathering of props and selecting backgrounds, creating a mood board and various other things comes in to picture for such kind of photography.
• Retouching
  Shooting just photographs of food and products may not be as appealing as it can be. Processing them takes these photographs a notch up. Various techniques are required even in food and product photography to make these pictures look better. In this, we study and practice various software and tools required to make these photographs look better and remove any error in the pictures that are made during shooting.

• Food Photography

As various other genres of photography, food photography has also evolved with time. Various kinds of food photography are carried on for several purposes and all of them require a different kind of preparation, execution, and post-production. The idea is to first understand where food and product photography stand against various other types of photography and gradually learn and practice this for different outputs, under different conditions.

• Shooting Food

Food photography is shooting photographs of food and beverage items for any client. The client could be a restaurant, a resort or any online food selling platform. There are various ways of shooting any food item, forex. you may shoot photos with plain background for any online selling platforms or you could be shooting high-end photographs with a lot of elements according to the demand of the project.

Shooting food is tricky as there are various types of food items that look very different, you have to bring out the texture of the food and so much more.

• Shooting Beverage

Beverages come in different packaging. The usage of these beverages depends from industry to industry.

For example, there are alcoholic beverages that require stylized shooting, similarly, there are juice bottles, milk or any type of consumable liquid.

The shooting techniques required for a beverage is very difficult since the shape of the bottles vary and so does the highlights and shadows in the edges and curves of various products.

• Shooting metal & glass

Different products have different packaging, they are usually made up of different elements, and are usually shot using different lighting setup and different techniques.

The metallic product reflects a lot of light whereas glass products are highly reflective therefore it is required to place the lighting right and use the right techniques.

• PRODUCT PHOTOGRAPHY

Product photography is a type of photography, which accurately and creatively shows a product attractive in advertising. Commercial photography is another term referring to advertising and marketing as it is intended to promote and sell a service or product.
Whether you are shooting a product for being used in the billboards or you are shooting a product to be used as a catalog for any E-commerce website, product photography requires a lot of practice and knowledge of various light setups to be used under different situations as per requirement.

Interior And Architecture Photography

Architectural photography is taking photographs of buildings and similar structures that are both aesthetically pleasing and accurate representations of the overall space. It could be a monument, real estate, hotel, a cafe or any resort.

Interior photography, on the other hand, is an integral element of architecture photography to depict exactly how any place looks from the inside.

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• Finding the right location (Recce)

Recce is the first step to get good interior architecture photographs. Before we start shooting it is important to learn what kind of lighting the place gets and what is the best time to shoot during the day.

If one has to use any external lights how are they going to be positioned and how to floodlight in a huge space are few things. One can be better prepared if they do a proper recce.

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• Understanding light

Different kinds of light are required by different architecture according to their structure, size, lines, space in and around, etc

Light can be utilized to show a structure in its best form. It can glorify the structure and bring life to it, help the photographer to show the place’s grandeur both outside and inside.

Using external lights to fill light in unevenly lit areas, add more drama and create visually pleasant photographs.

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• Types of angles

There are multiple angles a photographer can use to show the essence of any space.
Finding the right angle isn’t a very easy task, to show the whole area in one photograph is an important fact to consider.

Different orientation also plays an important role. Shooting a photo in horizontal orientation helps to show the width of any space while shooting in vertical orientation would show the height of the same space.

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• Equipments

All Interior and Architecture photographers must have a camera, a wide-angle lens, and a tripod. Apart from these equipment, they carry a few filters and some external lights so they can try interesting and unique ways to shoot the same place but with more drama.

For this course, all you would require though is a camera, a wide-angle lens, and a tripod, nothing else. For processing, however, if you have a laptop it would be an advantage but while you are learning processing techniques you can practice yourself too.

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• Shooting in low light

The light will not always be perfect while shooting architecture. For Ex. if you are shooting an industry or historical monuments, chances are there that the lighting may not be in your favor.
You will have to use some special techniques like bracketing or filling of light using external sources or maybe using composites. These techniques require knowledge of the process and techniques used.

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• Bracketing

Bracketing is a process in which the photographer takes multiple shots of various exposures(under, over & proper) and uses all of them to get the shadows, highlight and mid-tones in the photographs right.

Shooting is a major half of the final result but processing them right plays an equally important role too. Processing of these shots is done in multiple layers hence understanding the software is necessary.

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• Compositing

Bracketing is a process under which the photographer takes multiple shots of various exposures(under, over & proper) and then uses all of them to get the shadows, highlights and midtones right in the photographs.

Shooting is a major half of the final result but processing them right plays an equally important role too. Processing of these shots is done in multiple layers hence, understanding the right software becomes necessary.

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• Use of tripod

A tripod is necessary equipment to be included in the kit of an Interior and architecture photographer. Having a tripod will help you keep the orientation and alignment straight. If you are going to shoot multiple exposures or make a composite, it is almost impossible to get the perspective correct without a tripod.

A tripod helps you in keeping the angles and orientation right as well as making your composition correct. Tripods come with a variety of heads therefore selecting the right head is also very important.

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• Adding elements

Adding an element in the interior photographs could add more drama and bring out the overall feel of the space even better. Sometimes the photographers face difficulty when the space looks empty and there aren’t many props around to play with.

In situations like these, one can try adding elements later in post-processing. You can place them strategically in the pictures to make them visually appealing.

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• HDR

HDR stands for High Dynamic Range. In these kinds of photo shooting, different kinds of exposure is a common practice. This is done to retain information from the shadows and highlights in different situations

In HDR three different exposures are taken for any composition, an overexposed, one properly exposed and one underexposed photo is taken for different information in different places. These photos are later merged to create a photo that looks very sharp and of very high quality.

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• Depth of Field

In Architecture and Interior photography it is usually preferred to shoot at or beyond the sweet spot of the lens. Photographers usually prefer f/11 because post f/11 the images have a relatively large depth of field and that’s sufficient for most of the architecture photographs. If there are elements like some detailing in the design then it is required to be shot with shallow depth of field sometimes and is added later in the final photos. Hence, the depth of field plays an important role when it comes to choosing between the kind of shots required.

Medium Format Photography

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• Advantages of Medium Format

Higher Quality Images :

We already think DSLRs and mirrorless produce “high-quality” images, but the larger sensors on medium format cameras offer even more or bigger megapixels. The larger image area on medium format cameras can produce around 70% bigger and higher quality photos compared to those taken with full-frame cameras.

Shallower depth of field :

There’s a reason portrait and wedding photographers from the ‘70s to ‘90s were all about medium format. There’s just something magical about the falloff and depth you can get, making them a natural choice for portraits.

Even when viewing medium format images on the web, it’s signature “look” is apparent. There’s nothing quite as beautiful and realistic as medium format images due to their amazing colors, shallow depth of field, and lack of perception distortion that we usually see from today’s cameras. The resulting image always offers a more natural view, similar to what we see in real life.

Wider Field of View :

Medium format cameras have the unique capability to combine the features of a wide-angle lens and a long lens all in one device. While it allows you to get a wider field of view, you also get the background compression and shallow depth of field that you would get with a long lens.