Every cool project deserves to be documented and shared. Getting high-quality photos of your project doesn't have to be an expensive and difficult process. With the right people on your team, a photoshoot can be a great way to celebrate your hard work and have a great time. Check out how we did it.
Creating an Artistic Vision
Creating a working prototype from a series of conflicting priorities is a very messy process. At the core of this project is a commitment to simplicity. That characteristic provided the general artistic theme for the project documents, graphics, photos, and website style.
Setting the Stage
The shop space can be a great place to invent and test ideas. However; it can also be hard to spread out with other projects concurrently in development. A project like this has a way of connecting designers, engineers, and makers of different backgrounds and skill sets. Once word of a completed prototype spread through the shop, everyone was eager to put their projects aside for the afternoon to help support a photoshoot to showcase the project.
We used a white backdrop for the large demonstration photos. For the close-up shots, we used a light box with a white interior. Various additional lighting was used to provide sufficient illumination to detail the physical features of the device. The front of the shop has large windows, in the afternoon the natural light is also available. Timing the photoshoot in the afternoon meant that we had a great selection of different types of light to use.
Equipment
Attempting a photo shoot can be an exciting and intimidating prospect. The temptation to make everything perfect is a known danger of trying something new. Expensive cameras, lighting devices, and other support equipment have the potential to create amazing images, but these are not essential to making a good effort. The camera used for most of the images from the photoshoot was a typical smartphone. Having a small device helped to capture many of the images where dimensions were tight. The resulting images were edited afterward using a combination of photo editing software programs. Text and graphics were added and the size of the images was optimized for web hosting and social media dissemination.
People
This particular activity involved 5-8 people. We had a great time figuring out how to make this work together. Sometimes you don't need a perfect plan, expensive equipment, or extensive experience, sometimes all you need is a few people with a can-do attitude.
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