Product

Sharp where it should be sharp, an edge that separates cleanly from the background, and no distraction anywhere in the frame. The job is that someone looks at it and wants the object — not that they admire the photograph.

Most of the work happens before the shutter: flagging spill, controlling reflections, finding the one angle where the silhouette of the thing is unmistakable. Then detail.

Product work is the most controlled thing I shoot and the most unforgiving. There is nothing to hide behind — no expression, no moment, no weather.

Just an object, and whether the light describes it properly.Light defines surface. Matte wants soft and broad; gloss wants a shaped highlight with a clean edge; anything transparent gets lit from behind so the shape reads.

Product work is almost never one photograph. It is a run of them, and the run has to hold together: shadows falling the same way, objects sitting at the same height in the frame, relative sizes holding true from one shot to the next. So once the light is set I leave it alone and move objects through it rather than rebuilding for each one.

That is where these shoots go wrong. Every frame can be fine on its own and the page still looks off. Keeping the geometry is easier than matching it back together afterwards.

The common mistake is asking the picture to flatter. A flattered product photo turns the box opening into a small disappointment, and people remember that. The job is accuracy that happens to be attractive: the weave reads as that weave, the black is that black and not a darker one, the scale is obvious without a ruler in frame.

So accuracy has to be checked. I judge the frame with the object beside the screen, because memory adjusts fast and a screen is persuasive. The colour call belongs to whoever made the thing. Sometimes that means sending the quieter version of a picture.