Product Photography Overkill

I have two modes - complete slacker under achiever and over the top - why the hell did you do that much work-that’s completely unnecessary. Even in school, my two grades were B- (Normally after some begging from the teacher to not give me a C) or A++ (A perfect 100, with some extra credit thrown in  for good measure). It comes out when I take on jobs. For instance, I read two dozen books, even more blogs, and spent well over 200 hours preparing for teaching my Social Media Marketing class. It can’t just be another good class. It needs to compete with Seth Godin or the most engaging TEDTalks out there. Otherwise, why bother?

This is all just a rather large prologue. I took on a freelance job to take photographs of the glass cleaner wipes my aunt and uncle sell. I thought it would be three or four, and when they sent me 50 different colors, I’d already said yes. I had never done product photography before, and don’t own an SLR, but figured I could figure it out.

First, I followed the instructions at JYoseph to set up my own lightbox.

Then I borrowed a camera from a friend, bought foam core, and saw I didn’t have close to enough light.

I headed to the hardware store, and got a couple of 200 Watt light clamps, and bulbs to match. Two 150 bulbs did the trick.

Then, with a well lit box, I photographed each piece.

I individually straightened and cropped them, ending up with 50 pictures like these.

When I sent in those samples, apparently all they wanted was this:

In the end I could have done the photos with my point and shoot in about an hour and a half.

Was it overkill? A major miscommunication with the client? Completely unnecessary  extra work?

Yes, Yes, and yes -but now I have the supplies and skills to do product photography, so even if it was overkill, it was just the right amount.

(Original intended title for this post? Over Wiping, butt I decided that was a shitty idea.)