Commercial photography skills

Commercial photography skills

Digital cameras can not only meet the needs of daily applications, but also perform quite well in commercial applications! You may wish to take a look at my commercial photography skills, hoping to help you!

1. Everything starts with an idea

Sometimes, you will be lucky enough to receive a project that already has a shooting idea: although it may be just an atmosphere and a feeling, it is already a very good start. But more often, you need to get inspiration by yourself and form shooting ideas, such as themes, costumes, hairstyles, makeup, scene collocation, and a series of things.

2. Get inspiration for shooting

There are many ways to get ideas for shooting, but referring to other people's pictures is undoubtedly the most convenient and effective way. Therefore, when you are worried about the lack of shooting inspiration, you can browse a lot of pictures of other famous photographers and refer to their shooting ideas, so as to stimulate your own shooting inspiration (when getting ideas, you should pay attention to that the theme style of the whole shooting project is best close to the style that customers like).

3. Set up a shooting team

A complete team is essential for shooting a project, and most photographers often have a perfect team. If you don't have your own team, you can form one temporarily. The team generally includes makeup artists, stylists, etc. According to your own needs, set it up!

4. Models

For photographers, the importance of models is self-evident. A good and experienced model can reduce the photographer's workload and provide a certain guarantee for the photographer to shoot good works. Therefore, when seeking cooperation, it is best to find an experienced and dedicated model.

5. Choose a shooting location

After the team and models are formed, the next step is to choose a shooting location according to your ideas. If you shoot indoors, you should consider the choice of scenes and props, and the lighting is completely controlled by yourself; If you shoot outdoors, the trouble is to consider whether the weather will affect the shooting, and the lighting layout will also be affected by the sun.

6. Shooting time planning

Make arrangements for shooting time. First of all, you have to choose a date when the whole shooting team is available. If it is your own team, it is easier to achieve. If it is temporary, it may be more troublesome. Next, it is the time arrangement of on-site shooting. When planning, it is best to take into account the time spent on possible accidents, so as to have more time to complete the shooting (if the accident does not happen, the shooting can be completed ahead of schedule).

7. Shooting process

On the day of shooting, the shooting should be carried out in strict accordance with the previous plan, and the whole team should carry out their duties in an orderly manner, regardless of the shooting theme or the time arrangement. When shooting, you can use the final product as the frame, just like when shooting for a magazine, you can use the pages of the magazine as the frame to see how the effect is, so as to avoid the mistakes that the shot pictures can't be used. At the same time, special attention should be paid to details during shooting, such as folds of clothes, stray hair and so on, so as to reduce the later workload.

8. handover of finished products

? In post-production, the original theme style should be kept and not changed at will, because every customer has his own style. After the production is completed, you can't publish the finished product on the Internet immediately. You should send the finished product to the customer and get the consent before you can publish it on the Internet.

lighting skills in indoor commercial photography

fixing the scene and measuring the color

Usually, photographers need to come to the scene to check the design of the overall environment (turn on all the lights), from the whole to the part, taking into account the ceiling, floor and furnishings, and then observe it from a reverse angle to determine the scene and the composition angle. At the same time, we should also check the light ratio and contrast between the whole environment and local light, so as to determine whether it is necessary to make up the light, what kind of light source to use to make up the light, and whether the lighting equipment will "break through". Even some photographers will use exposure meter to measure the illumination of different scenes and make accurate exposure calculation.

In addition, it is necessary to pay attention to whether there is a mixture of light sources with different color temperatures in different scenes, and the influence of surrounding lighting on brightness and color temperature in this scene, so as to determine whether the supplementary light is soft light or hard light, and whether it is low or high illumination.

generally speaking, the focus of field inspection is to conceive whether the whole set of photos can show the design style of the environment, how to control the contrast, and what style to use for post-processing.

determining the light compensation equipment

when using lamps for light compensation in the early shooting, a variety of lamps and accessories are needed. Generally, there are flash lamps, high-power continuous light sources, lamp holders with different heights, standard reflectors and supporting honeycomb sheets, beam tubes and supporting small honeycomb sheets, soft boxes (large and small) or reflective umbrellas, warm color filters, four-leaf shutters and so on. Among them, the lamp holder should be large and medium-sized with a height of more than 3 meters, and it should be used with a universal clip. The soft box can be configured in two sizes: 15×8 cm and 8×6 cm, and distributed according to the number of lamps.

fill light skills for different scenes

When shooting in indoor lighting environment, the fill light skills for different scenes are slightly different. For example, when shooting the whole lobby or hotel lobby, if the contrast is too large, we often shoot different exposure value in the same position, and then use the "manual HDR" method of mask superposition and post-synthesis.

If the hall or lobby is deep and the distance is too dark, it is necessary to illuminate the environment or a display item with a dark color by lighting, and only part of the environment or display item will be superimposed during post-production, and the "goof-off" assistants and lighting equipment will be excluded.

When shooting the mid-shot, there is a big contrast of the light on the scene, so it is necessary to use a variety of lighting equipment. For example, if there is no ceiling in the composition, 1-3 flashlights equipped with standard reflectors can be erected outside the picture to illuminate the ceiling at 45-75 degrees, and the overall contrast of the scene can be reduced by the diffuse reflection of the ceiling. Sometimes it is necessary to install a color filter in front of the reflector to match the color temperature of the environment, and sometimes it is necessary to install a four-leaf shade in front of the lamp holder to prevent stray light.

for dark furnishings, a lamp equipped with a beam tube or a small soft box can be used for fixed-point lighting. The complementary light angle is set according to the direction of scattered light in the environment; If the article has been illuminated by spotlights, but the contrast is large, it is necessary to fill the shadow part and add corresponding color filters according to the color temperature of ambient light; If the spotlights are not bright enough, it is necessary to add a lamp with a small soft box or reflective umbrella in the same irradiation direction.

if the same furniture/display exists in different scenes, the exposure and color of the item should be unified as much as possible to maintain the unity of the whole group of photos. At the same time, when lighting, you should carefully check whether there is any scuffing caused by reflection. ;