About a week ago, I went on some photography-related errands, including buying some props. Some of these props included some various fruits: lemons, grapefruits, etc. Now, I was hoping to hit two birds with one stone and use the fruit in two consecutive photoshoots, a fruit product photoshoot and a milk bath photoshoot (which I’ve posted a mood board for). However, due to scheduling difficulties, I haven’t been able to get a good time to do this. Not wanting the fruit to go to waste, I decided to go forward with my fruit product photography shoot, and save the milk bath for a later date.

Product photography is first and foremost an advertising style of photography, used to entice shoppers to buy a company’s product. It’s used a lot in videography as well; there are a bunch of cool photographers/videographers who have created product “commercials” at home for fun. I’ve never done product photography before, but wanted to try my hand at it and sort of “dip my toes in”.

While I’m labeling my shoot as product photography, it could also be categorized into still life photography, as I’m not necessarily advertising a product. Just a little disclaimer.

So, I gathered my fruit and a plastic “silver” platter I had in my props storage and headed downstairs to my kitchen. I had to figure out lighting and placement, and after I did that I arranged my two oranges and my grapefruit on the platter (the lemons had already gone bad unfortunately). I liked the initial shots, but it just looked… empty.

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That didn’t really worry me, though– I knew I wanted shots of the fruit being cut up, so I got some of those, having to work around awkward positioning to make sure the hands in the photo didn’t look weird. After I cut one orange, I redid the platter with the slices of orange. I think it looked really cool, and I really liked how they turned out.

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The stroke of genius came, however, when I wanted to grab a drink. My mom had just bought some Sparkling Ices– those carbonated fruit drinks– and after choosing my desired flavor, I realized I could turn this still-life photoshoot into a makeshift product photoshoot. The flavor I had chosen was Orange Mango, so it was perfect with the already cut up fruit I had. I added some crushed ice for some contrasting textures and to add more interest and relevance to the product, and voila.

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I’m super happy with how the photos came out, and so glad with how the photoshoot evolved. It was also one of my quickest shoots, due to its simplicity. I definitely would call this a success, and will surely try this with some other products in the future.

Until next time!