Lessons
Day 1
1Class Introduction
25:09 2Basic Tabletop Photography
17:55 3Basic Tabletop Q&A
27:08 4More Basic Tabletop Photography
10:42 5Lighting Setups and Implementation
26:47 6Building Simple Tools
27:41Day 2
Why Tabletop Photography?
30:36 8Product vs. Still Life
27:28 9Product vs. Still Life Q&A
21:48 10Basic Tabletop Setup and Gear
14:38 11Setup and Gear Q&A
19:44 12Lighting Considerations
25:21 13General Q&A
28:43 14Shoot: Wine Bottles
49:37 15Shoot: Jewelry Part I
23:16 16Shoot: Jewelry Part II
34:37 17Q&A and Business
19:05Day 3
18Shooting for Dimension
22:28 19Shooting for Dimension Q&A
14:13 20The Challenge of Shiny Surfaces
29:07 21Working with a Variety of Surfaces
14:33 22Shoot: Make-up and Brushes
35:17 23Shooting to a Layout
37:41 24Student Shoots, Part I
53:09 25Student Shoots, Part II
31:13 26Fixing a Missing Pearl in Photoshop
18:39 27The Value of Your Work
41:30Day 4
28Product and Still Life: The Modern Challenge
26:54 29Still Life Demo (Shoes)
08:32 30Bidding and Pricing Q&A
31:17 31A Sensible Approach to Gear
12:18 32Shoot: Guitar with Multiple Light Layers
17:41 33Guitar: Compositing Lights in Photoshop
30:06 34Drop and Pop
12:40 35Special Shoot: Motorcycle
59:53 36Q&A and Relief Cut Shoot
10:14 37Creating Your Product Photography Business, Part I
40:09 38Creating Your Product Photography Business, Part II
27:08Lesson Info
Drop and Pop
just I'll show you what a drop in pop is okay so dropping pop might be uh let's shoot one here one here john we'll just got her in their this's the kind of photographer I want to be john shoot that photograph charles get me a beer lori my car is a little dirty take care of that for me I haven't touched a camera in nine years I'm a big time photographer I would hate that way drop in pop right so that's fifty bucks drop pop that's fifty bucks this is drop and pop photography there yes I can yes I can write about nothing's changing one more I would like to say before I put this item out that I had nothing to do with this case is dropped popping sizzle all right so that's dropping pop photography folks that is drop pop photography you can that's why one of the reasons why I uh I love this little motor house can you see how nice this thing works just piece a cake if it's in your suitcase if you were shooting artifacts especially um really kind of really cool things here's a thought what if ...
you walked around seattle and you picked up little things that were on the ground right just maybe a bottle cap or tourney up ticket or something context is everything when you take that artifact that you found on the street and you put on a white and you shoot it and you remove all context it changes the context of that item about a year after nine eleven a photographer in new york had a show where he showed stuff that had come from the rubble of nine eleven a man's wallet a woman's ring and stuff they were chilling because you saw this totally dusty ripped wallet on white pure seamless removed a context and yet you felt that shot you knew what it was it could be really interesting and I am I haven't done this with my motor house yet but I'm taking it wherever I go and I'm gonna start shooting artifacts little things that I find in my hotel room on this stuff and I want to end up with you know all this kind of stuffing and stuff your final this side of the road or whatever shot on the white so thanks a big shout out to motor house for for a very clever piece of equipment by the way if you go up to their website we'll crash it just before lunch if you have to their website you'll see some of the things that other for tires have done with this very simple motor house and knock you out some incredible talent out there okay that's a drop in pop this is a question from t floyd from tampa may have been covered already but what software programs is on does dawn consider essential to table top product photography well you know yeah that's that's going I know there's a lot of people who love light room I can get my arms around light room doesn't do enough for me photo shop if you can shoot and light room does everything that you needed to do than light room but one of the other one of the other I'm a photo shop guy you know a lot of times were photoshopped guy because you know first photo shop I bought was version two point one a long time ago and so light room hasn't shown me any reason to change nor aperture or any of the other ones but so photo shop or at or light room would be great style can you give us some tips for how we should do that we don't get our ryan and here's how you start out do you like the shot do you like what you're doing if you don't like the pictures you're making probably not your style every once in a while you've got to try things too you got experiment right and you'll make a photograph and you'll think I really like this photograph I feel good about this photograph that will be part of your style that they're your style starts to come through you have to love it you have to be able to defend it sometimes you'll do things better in your style in other people go channel really care much for that well yeah that's okay it's your style I was going to ask is it ok to show my website online that's okay all right because I was going to say I'm in the midst of changing my style so I can actually show you what I'm doing okay if that's if it's okay there's no naked people in it more car fenders there's no car parts in it either yeah uh question from red john is from malaysia do you process such drop and pop images oh way never possible no that's the whole point of it get it right little field cards get it right in that spot so you can literally drop him and pop him it's a matter of fact the last drop and popeye did we were dropping him caught right into the into my laptop approved and a disk was burned right out the other side have a nice day we took him right and we just took him right into photoshopped converted right to tips and right out the back side who ever done you don't know if you're going to sit in this then all of a sudden you dropping pop fi let's say you're doing you know dropping pops for twenty five dollars now I have to sit and work on each one for thirty minutes uh no way dropping pop means that so get it right in the camera and I know we talked about this yesterday by luan lil from estonia says do you shoot tethered in your studio usually one hundred percent of the time now because now I have a knife I card uh so if I'm not tethered to my computer shooting through either through captor capture one or light room then I'm going to shoot into the to the ipad and look at him there I can't even hardly shoot on location anymore without shooting tether no on vacation I don't watch walkthrough disneyland with my thirteen inch laptop taking pictures of the kids going nice hold that honey but if it's any kind of commercial or even personal serious work all tethered other than my lifestyle and you'll see if I can show my website you'll see what I'm talking about my life stop can't be done lifestyle work can be done that whatever you're sending a preview of a setup that you're doing how are you setting that file over is it like a thumbnail style or is it a certain size depends on the client is linear bandwidth but generally it's uh twelve hundred or two thousand wide pixel j pick so I can attach it to an e mail and send it out or even more if you got a more hip client you can actually have a drop box they can watch the drop box you could drop it right in the drop box and it appears on their side as soon as it uploads drop boxes great private drop boxes with each of my clients that's the fastest way and what the drop box where does that like dropbox is free dropbox dot com is free for five hundred megabytes or something like that to gigabytes free so is long you know store a bunch of stuff up there you can put a lot of j pegs into that you can create a folder then you tell your client you share that folder with your client's email client logs into dropbox and it's sitting right there just like a folder on his desktop well it is a folder on his desktop isn't it and is a folder on your desktop and it's a folder on his and you drag it into yours and it appears and hiss yeah they can get an email so you shared it or you can actually have it open right there on his desk now that's something that he could save from the dress yep you can just drag it right to his hard drive he wants or it's already in his drop you're gonna want to send an email size j peg up for approval you don't want to send her off out drop box no right no no no no no no you'd send a jpeg so we can see it here she can see it absolutely not a tiff because tips can't be seen by everybody but a j peg they can actually drag it into the browser see if this job much better than email yes yeah charlotte from charlotte is wondering if dropping pop is a term that only photographers recognise where the term that you can use when talking to a client you can use it talking to clients they know okay any kind of client that's done any kind of catalog work or consumer work and stuff they're gonna know the term dropping pop sure and from paul a bill of floor from the philippines you mentioned tiff a few times may we know why you prefer that file type over others um yeah a tiff is an exact my exact image where the jpeg can be you know it's you khun resize a jpeg and photoshopped can go through it it has to make all kinds of algorithmic things when you start re sizing tips you gotta know what you're doing with him so we notify his tiff is what I normally use when I've done the shot toe layout for instance I do ads for companies okay uh and I use photo shopped for single page ads you word use indesign photoshopped designed for a single page ad yeah I use photo shopped for single page ads and then when I do that I save it as a tip because it's absolute there if I say that is a jpeg little bit loss and all that kind of stuff but I'll save it as a tip and you give in to the magazine it's ah sam why kate if they just stick it in the layout move when I do it in designer you know you have to gather up or what's it called you know package it and all that kind of stuff and you got font issues sometimes so question yes if you're delivering an image to bob's doughnut shop for his wall how would you deliver that image to him probably a print probably a print and maybe uh you gotta check the tax laws in your state but some some states if you don't give them something on hard copy it's not a product it's a service and therefore there's no state sales tax on it I know that when some states it's not that way in other states uh so they can go up on dropbox and pick up the image you put the image on a cd chart sell sex work so check with your states all states difference all municipalities could be different there are a ton of questions coming in about more of the business end of the photography I think we're gonna save that for this afternoon and right now we're gonna take about a forty five minute lunch break yep and then we'll do something real special and then we'll jump back on business and it's going to be business right to the end because when I get into that last module about where you can find clients where you can actually uh like I said if you're not if you haven't bought it and you're not gonna buy it grab a pencil a pencil and a paper because we're going to go through a lot of steps you take a lot of notes and it works guarantee
Class Materials
bonus material with enrollment
Ratings and Reviews
mc
THere are some courses in CL i think of as not covering a to z but covering -z to z. THis is one of those courses. The value proposition is over the top. The instricutor: Don Giannatti is so experienced he's a relaxed in his knowledge and practiced in cutting to the chase to provide answers to really good questions about set ups for product photos (vs. art/ still-life). The topics: complete workflow from first principles in order to understand what we're trying to achieve with table top work, Don Giannatti makes it clear that we're using light deliberately to give shape to an object. Example insight: using a white card (or black) reflector is not the same as using a silver/gold reflector. The latter create a new light source; the former shape the light that's there. Can imagine the arguments but the demo brings the points home. Or how about NOT using umbrellas for product shots. Or for "drop and pop" product shots, how to do that without umbrellas and tents "that's 50 dollars a shot right there" says Giannatti. Example tool demo: one of the joys of this course is that such an expert does most of the class using readily makable tools like scrims from shower curtains and baking paper. The specialist tools like a modifier on a flash is well within the range of an aspiring commerial table top photographer. And Meaningful Demos LIGHTING/composition what are some of the most challenging and compelling things to shoot when building a portfolio/photographic experience? Can you shoot shiny stuff - like bottles and jewlery. PHOTOSHOP making photoshop unpretencious and accessible, Giannatti presents examples of how to fix bits of a shot, as well as - and this one is worth the price of admission - how to put together a composite of a guitar product shot if you only have one limited sized light to light the whole thing. We also see where highlights can be added - and how. Some basic knowledge of Photoshop layering, masking and brushes would be good to have, but one can work back from seeing it applied into those basic skills. BUSINESS We start with light giving shape to objects as a demonstrable principle, move into how to use light structurally for bringing out something fantastic about that product - that as Giannatti points out - puts bread on someone's table, so respect. From these demos we go from light and camera to post to produce the finished image. Now what? or how have a product that needs shooting? That's the business of product photography. In these excellent sections on Business, Giannatti details the heuristics of hard graft to get gigs: where to look for contacts, frequency of approach, engaging with social media (you don't have to, he says, but effectively, it's gonna cost ya). "Doing just these few things you're already way ahead of your competition." I can believe it: they are many of them tedious, but can also well believe they are what pay off. COURSE BONUSES JUST FOR SIGNING UP - for those who subscribed to a live broadcast, all the slides were provided in advance (you can see this offer on class materials) Now that's classy. What other CL courses have done that: given something to participants who just show an interest to sign up? (It's that gift thing kevin kubota talks about in his workshop on photography business - makes one want to work with that person: pay them for the value they create, eh?) TRUST/VALUE Instructor Personality Throughout each part what's delightful is just the EXPERIENCE of this instructor. He's put together a thoughtful course from light to lighting to parts to gear to post to business. There's immediate trust: plainly this man has made a living from what he's talking about, and has addressed almost any immaginable scenario. There's a great demo towards the end of the course of working with students to take shots. The value to folks watching is to see how he helps us all think about how to problem solve (the mantra for the course) to find the shot - to use light card after lightcard to wrap the light to bring out the countours of the material. Even when he says "that's just not working" - there's not a sense of the people shooting having failed - but an opportunity to think about what's been learned - to keep working the problem. There's a whole lot of HOW in that interaction that is highly valuable. Thanks to the participants in the workshop to be so willing too to do that work. This is the kind of course you leave feeling like ok, i can do this - or at least i have the tools and some knowhow now about them to start to work these problems, to start to create value in these kinds of shots. I am already just from being here a better photographer now. Related CL Course: This course feels like a terrific complement to Andrew Scrivani's Food Photography. And no wonder: both take place in small areas and use light in similar ways. A contrast is that in editorial food photography - scrivani's domain - there's a focus on skills to work with what's there; in table top/product, one can enhane - knowing how to do that effectively/believably is where the skills - learning to see that - come in for this kind of work in partiular . If tabletop/product photography is a space you wish to explore, or you just want to be able to practice working with light in the small, and see how to bring you will be delighted with this -z to z deep dive introduction.
a Creativelive Student
By chance I stumbled accross Don Giannattis’s Website and his creativeLIVE selection of videos. I was impressed by the material presented and decided to purchase the course for adopting some of his methods and concepts of light control in table top photography. The course covers a wide field, from building your own lighting tools to guidelines for getting in the product photography business. Emphasis is put on understanding light control related to the specifics of the object, discussing the how and why of the creative process. Insistence and patience were demonstrated to be prerequisites for achieving the desired quality of the pictures. I liked to follow the course, because Don Giannattis’s makes an excellent instructor. He has a clear concept, a wonderful sense of humor, and he is very flexible when listening and responding to questions of participants. I really liked this course and recommend it to all beginners in table top photography. William
a Creativelive Student
What an amazing workshop. Don holds nothing back, taking us from start to finish in a manner that will allow anyone doing this workshop (and I mean DOING) to go out and do product photography. What's more, Don is not pushing a bunch of expensive gear as the key to making good photos - he makes it accessible to those starting out with a low budget. I could feel Don's good-will toward beginning photographers in the way he conducted this workshop and that is deeply appreciated. It makes him a good teacher. I bought this course and his Lighting Essentials workshop and consider myself lucky to have the opportunity to learn from him.