Still Life Composition for Stock

Arranging still lifes or single objects for photographing is an important part of stock photography.

Placing the objects on a pure white background, or sometimes a black background, gives the object an isolated appearance which is very desirable with the designers who purchase the images.

It is not an easy thing to keep the background pure white. I have found that overexposing the image a bit seems to help with the "gray" that tends to seep into these isolated backgrounds.

Also in post processing, it is easy to remove some of the flaws in the background. This takes time and experience to master.

The lighting needs to be just right also, or shadows will be cast by the objects. The designers do not want these shadows, so moving the lights around will help eliminate them for the most part.

The lights can create glare or overblown highlights on some objects, so you need to be careful where the lights are placed to avoid this problem also.

It is all a big experiment to get all the technical aspects right, and it is something that takes time and lots of practice to learn correctly.

Digital cameras are an economical way of practicing and testing compared to the film and processing methods of the past.