Planning ideas for a product shoot can be extremely fun and hard at the same time.

The goal is to make sure my clients are 100% satisfied in the end. The professional photographs I provide for them are meant to connect their clientele-present and future, with the products they sell in hopes they become long time customers.

Sometimes the ideas might seem impossible. For example, I don’t live near the beach, or own a pool.

For one of my styled shoots, I wanted the setting to be at the beach or pool. So instead of it stopping my creative process, I made a beach/pool scene and I chose to shoot this outside to give it the high contrast light.

The tools used:

Playsand
Clear acrylic container
blue poster board
water hose
beach props
clients products
white foamboard to reflect light on your subject and cancel out the warm tones from the brick.
tripod
Spray bottle with water to make the sand wet and condensation on products

Tips:

As you are shooting, be aware of your own shadow
Try several angles
Move props around to try different looks
Under-expose (darken) your photo when shooting outside. It’s hard to see the exposure correctly when shooting outside in the bright light.
Shoot with a variety of lenses so you can get different looks

You can shoot these with your DSLR or iPhone. I hope you have fun creating.

If you have questions, leave a comment and I’ll be happy to answer them.