Behind The Scenes with Rexall

This is one of my favourite kinds of photoshoots with one of my favourite clients, Rexall. I enjoy photographing products, everything from cosmetics, perfumes, and everything else that Rexall offers.

When setting up a product shoot, the first thing I do is think about the lighting. Depending on what the style and look that the client is looking for, that will determine how I’ll light the set.

For this shoot, in particular, I like to start with my large Elinchrom Rotalux Octabox 175 cm (69″) with my Profoto D2 500w light…it’s a big octabox! I like it because it creates the look of soft ambient window light. I then add another Profoto D2 500w light with a beauty dish and a grid attached to it. I do this to give little more light to the product and create a bit more depth to the direction of the light.

The last touch for the lighting that I add is the large V-flat (4×6′ foam core) on the opposite side of the directional light, it fills in the shadow, so they don’t go too dark.

Simultaneously, as I’m setting up the lighting, the team is adding the product to the set and getting it ready to shoot. It takes some time to adjust each product, so it looks just right. I also have to make sure that the product is free of dust and fingerprints, sometimes you only see it on the screen when the image is captured. There is always postproduction and touch-ups done to the photos. This just helps save some time from that if you correct those kinds of issuses in from of the lense.

For this photoshoot, the camera that I used was my Nikon D500 and the Nikon 24-70mm 2.8 lense. The lighting used is my Profoto D2 500w AirTTL monolighs.

For some product shots, we do “lay flats.” that’s just the straight overhead shots.

I attached a tripod head to the Manfrotto Avenger Mini Boom Arm so I can have my camera directly over the product. It’s a great way to do this, and it would be very challenging if it weren’t for shooting tethered to the computer. Every time you need to adjust the product, all you need to do is capture it directly from the computer without touching the camera.