LEGO
Studio - Round 1
When designing this shot the first time in studio I was definitely unprepared. While my idea was on the right track — the delivery was underwhelming. My composition had too much empty space and if the spaceship was actually moving, like the photo on the left suggests, they'd be leaving the astronaut far behind. Another issue is the direction of the spaceship — its pointing down. While its a very minor issue the ship is suppose to be "the hero" and having it point down, instead of up, doesn't give the ship that hero stature.
Round 2
After reviewing the pictures from my first shot I needed more elements in the shot to it would provide more interest. So I went back to the studio this time with more LEGOs (thanks to my mom and grandma) and a better idea for my composition. The most challenging part for this shot was the set up and it would've been worse if not for Dustin. We had to tie the pieces with fishing wire and the smaller the piece was — the harder it was to tie a knot around it.
The Process
Once Dustin and I finally finished tying the pieces and got the camera and lights set up we were ready to take our shot. The problem with the first shot was the amount of negative space — so I had to figure out how to add more layers. We used three stands to create depth — Earth and the largest asteroid were the furthest, the spaceship and a few LEGO bricks were in the middle, and finally the astronaut and two asteroids were placed closest to the camera. As we took our shots we had to troubleshoot the composition. Move this piece here, snap, okay now move this piece, snap, alright now this one, snap. Finally to add even more dimension, we took the astronaut and his rover off the first layer and physically held the strings closer to the camera. I really loved that idea because we had more control over the astronauts position and it filled in the final piece of empty space.
Camera Settings and Lights
For the camera settings, I wanted both the astronaut and the spaceship to be in focus while everything else was out of focus. I stopped the aperture down to f/ 32, the shutter speed was at 1/125th, and two strobe lights with soft boxes at power level 6. The problem with f/ 32 was everything was in focus, but I wanted the further asteroids and Earth to be out of focus. I opened up the aperture a few more stops and settled on f/stop 22.
Post-Production
Finally in post-production I realized we made a mistake with our lighting situation. The lights were set up on both sides of the set, but that wouldn't make sense since the strongest light source in space is the sun and that light, while being reflected and refracted throughout our solar system, is coming from one direction. So I had to flip a few asteroids and Earth to bring everything together.
Autumn Maple Coffee
At Home
This product shot was different than the LEGO setup. With the LEGOs I was building a scene and everything in the shot was LEGO. With the coffee I had to build the entire set, so my girlfriend, Shelby, and I went to Hobby Lobby and we bought the red poster board and the fall leaves with this shot in mind. I knew I wanted to build the set in our kitchen to take advantage of our overhead lights. The lights are fully moveable and they have smart bulbs in there so we could control the temperature and luminance. Once we started setting things up I didn't account for a backdrop, thankfully I had two shirts that are similar in color and we have a pot rack above our island which allowed us the hang the shirts.
The Set
Since the coffee packaging had warm colors, I felt the dominate red with the orange and yellow leaves really brought a nice aesthetic to the piece. The warm colors surrounding the white mug and bag really framed the shot and directed your attention to the product. In addition to the overhead lights we placed a lamp with a softer light behind the camera to bring in some warmth to the image.
Camera Settings and Lights
For the camera settings I wanted the aperture to be as big as possible at f/ 4.5 and shutter speed at 1/10 with the focus on the bag/ mug with the other elements slowing blurring into the background. For the lights we had four overhead lights directing down at maximum power and a neutral white plus the soft white light from the lamp positioned behind the camera.
Post Production
Thankfully with this design there wasn't much post production needed. In the original shot the bag and mug were a little slanted so I transformed them to be upright and tall. I saturated the reds and yellows to enhance the overall image. I also added a slight vignette effect to bring more focus to the product. Finally, I added a few elements to the piece, the first being the Trader Joe's logo. While Trader Joe's doesn't do a lot of advertising I thought the logo would be a nice edition. Lastly, I added some steam over the coffee — we tried a few tactics to produce steam in the shot: incense, paper towels, and rolling papers, but none of those were giving us the effect we wanted so we settled with artificial steam for the final product.
Credits:
@JohnBlair2020