Workphlo Archives - DIY Photography

How to photograph a clear liquid bottle using inexpensive gear and unusual modifiers

January 17, 2020 by John Aldred 2 Comments

Bottles are always a fun and challenging photography experiment, especially ones that contain crystal clear liquids like vodka. I don’t buy vodka often and when I do, it rarely tends to stay full long enough to have any time in front of the camera, but Dustin at Workphlo has definitely put some thought into photographing this one using some low budget kit and very interesting techniques.

If you’ve watched Dustin’s videos before, you’ll know he’s a fan of compositing when it comes to product photography. And this particular technique pretty much requires it as he cuts paper to act as reflectors on just small sections of the bottle’s label.

[Read More…]

How to shoot atmospheric photos of glass with just a couple of speedlights

January 6, 2020 by John Aldred 2 Comments

Photographing glass can be a very tricky topic if you don’t know how to approach it. It doesn’t react to light the way that most of the subjects we shoot do, because there’s really nothing to actually light. It’s all about the lit objects that reflect off it or refract through it.

You don’t need a lot of fancy gear to photograph glass, though, and in this video from Dustin at Workphlo, we see how we can photograph glass with a very simple setup utilising just a couple of speedlights, a small strip softbox and a diffuser.

[Read More…]

This is how table affects light when photographing wine bottles

November 28, 2019 by Dunja Djudjic 1 Comment

There are many things to pay attention to if you want to take flawless product photos. One of them is certainly the surface you use for placing the products. While it can be important how it looks, the table you use also affects the light. In this video, Dustin Dolby of workphlo shows you just how much of a difference it can make when you use tables of different sizes.

[Read More…]

How to deal with tricky reflective surfaces and create stunning product photos

September 23, 2019 by Dunja Djudjic 3 Comments

When doing product shots in the studio, reflective surfaces could be very tricky to handle. But of course, there are methods to deal with them and light them to show all their beauty. In this video, Dustin Dolby of Workphlo shares a comprehensive tutorial on lighting and photographing tricky, reflective products. And what’s more, you don’t need fancy gear. Prepare simple lighting modifiers, your DIY spirit, and Photoshop.

[Read More…]

Use Photoshop’s Lighten blend mode to shoot high end product composites

November 30, 2017 by John Aldred 4 Comments

Shooting product photography is a whole lot of fun. Often, though, it can require a surprisingly high number of lights and modifiers to get the job done in a single shot. But what if you don’t have a ton of gear? What if you just want to give it a go without having to spend on a bunch of new flashes? Compositing is the answer.

In this video, Dustin Dolby from Workphlo uses just a single speedlight to show one process for creating composited product photographs. It’s a great technique for creating product composites with a perfectly clean white background with whatever subject light you need. As well as the basic shooting process, Dustin also goes over his entire post workflow.

[Read More…]