Sonbol watch product photography

[creechjs]

Well a lot has happened recently that I guess I should divulge. I had the good fortune of meeting the owner of Sonbol watches, a fairly new watch manufacturer based in the US, and was asked to produce some images for their product catalog and website. All their watches are 54mm, which is fairly massive, and the majority showcase 21 Miyota Automatic movement. Sonbol basically gave me total creative freedom to do whatever I wanted with the images and also allowed me to request as many watches as I wanted to shoot. I ended up requesting these six seen below.

http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/9215/watches1.jpg (http://img132.imageshack.us/i/watches1.jpg/)

For each watch, I plan on shooting a different series with a concept based off of the watches color scheme. I have shot two images so far, averaging right around 8 or 9 hours of shooting and editing per image. The first watch I shot was the Black/Gold Sonbol Doobie. I had photographed watches once before and I had forgotten how difficult it was. Unless you have a million lights, it is almost impossible to capture everything in camera on one shot. To make things worse, a lot of the watches are black. Now everyone here knows black cars are difficult to shoot, but I will tell you first hand, black watches are even harder.

The concept for the gold watch was based off of actual gold. I created some improvised gold dust by spray painting a massive amount of kosher salt gold. I don't think the gold dust photographed nearly as well then it actually looked in real life. Later in the series, I plan on making a giant gold bar stamped with the logo of Sonbol and composing a shot with this watch wrapped around it.

http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/7122/golddoobie1web.jpg (http://img190.imageshack.us/i/%5bURL=http://img16.imageshack.us/i/golddoobie1web.jpg/)

Here are a few behind the scenes shots.

http://img203.imageshack.us/img203/6742/watches2.jpg (http://img203.imageshack.us/i/watches2.jpg/)

http://img32.imageshack.us/img32/8674/watches3.jpg (http://img32.imageshack.us/i/watches3.jpg/)

The second watch i shot was the Black/Orange Doobie. I think all photographers are pyros at heart, so I'll use any excuse to involve fire in my photography. I knew I wanted one of the shots in this series to look like the watch is literally burning, but I obviously wasn't about to burn a $850 watch. So, I constructed one out of foam core and burnt it instead. The watch itself is stripped together from 6 images. The fire was created largely from two images and a bit of photoshop.

http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/3957/orangedoobie2web.jpg (http://img28.imageshack.us/i/orangedoobie2web.jpg/)

Here are the 8 images used in the final image.

http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/633/orangedoobiebuild.jpg (http://img38.imageshack.us/i/orangedoobiebuild.jpg/)

And an animation of the process coming together.

http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/7430/orangedoobieanimation.gif (http://img196.imageshack.us/i/orangedoobieanimation.gif/)

[Cyclop]

Excellent series, well done.

[brandon5069]

Wow!
that's a fantastic opportunity for you. Congrats!!!

And I love the edits. It works well for the rather large/bold watches.

[AmpedPhoto]

This is one the best thread I have seen in a while, I love the gold idea, the burning looks pretty badass.


I am so gonna try these with my own twist, thanks

[creechjs]

http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/4140/orangedoobie2.jpg (http://img38.imageshack.us/i/orangedoobie2.jpg/)

[Hotsauce]

Great work on all of these!...but, there seems to be something in the background of the first burning one, 2/3 of the way up the picture on the left. Its kinda distracting to me. They are all fantastic shots still!

[creechjs]

Great work on all of these!...but, there seems to be something in the background of the first burning one, 2/3 of the way up the picture on the left. Its kinda distracting to me. They are all fantastic shots still!

Yes sir there is! I was notified of that on another forum and have already made the correction on the high res, but good catch.

[perfeng702]

these are great. thanks for the tutorials

[creechjs]

http://img43.imageshack.us/img43/6903/detail3bweb.jpg (http://img43.imageshack.us/i/detail3bweb.jpg/)

[creechjs]

http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/8039/whitedoobie3web.jpg (http://img35.imageshack.us/i/whitedoobie3web.jpg/)

[creechjs]

So here is the basic table top setup. I still am not totally sure what this fake snow is made out of. I had a contact at a commercial photography studio that allowed me to borrow the fake snow they use for all of their seasonal christmas catalogs.

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/7717/blog2y.jpg (http://img508.imageshack.us/i/blog2y.jpg/)

For the snow flakes shot, I put the camera on 10 sec timer mode and ran to the table to sprinkle the snow from a handy gravy boat from my kitchen. You'll also notice the strange white bags over the Alienbees. I've found the cloth bags they ship the lights in, make for great diffusion material.

http://img176.imageshack.us/img176/5899/blog1r.jpg (http://img176.imageshack.us/i/blog1r.jpg/)

And here are the 5 pictures used to make the the final image.

http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/6595/blog3rd.jpg (http://img30.imageshack.us/i/blog3rd.jpg/)

[Hotsauce]

Man these are all amazing! I love em all :D

[creechjs]

Well for this one I wanted to make it look like it were on a frozen lake. I used a piece of glass and sprayed it with a thin layer of water. I let that freeze in the freezer and then applied another coat of water. I repeated this 3 or 4 times. I then sprinkled some of the fake snow in top.

http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/6479/whitedoobie4web.jpg (http://img511.imageshack.us/i/whitedoobie4web.jpg/)

And here is the same shot with lume.

http://img237.imageshack.us/img237/4610/whitedoobie5web.jpg (http://img237.imageshack.us/i/whitedoobie5web.jpg/)

[Cyclop]

Excellent shots.

[Beta]

Very nice set of photos.

very creative.

[RadAL]

on post #9, i wish there was a full reflection...

[Lonnie]

Fantastic opportunity for you and them. Great shots, and a nice website/blog too.

[kosin]

After seeing the first shot, six watches on the tile floor, I was about to close the window and move on to the next thread. Accidentally I scroll down and saw the "Gold Dust' shot...


WOW!



Not only I've read whole thread but also subscribed, and now I can't wait for the next shots...

Excellent work Jeff and very informative thread!

[cool breeze]

They came to the right person for this job. Great work!

[creechjs]

Wow, guys. Thank you very much for the kind words.

Since the unfortunate accident where my aquarium shattered and one of my lights got fried, I don't really have the means of shooting any more water shots. I had planned on shooting one of the watches with a seahorse (if you haven't noticed their logo is of a seahorse), but without an aquarium that would seem difficult. I ended up talking to people at the pet store, who were nice enough to allow me to bring my lighting equipment into their store and shoot the seahorses they had in stock. Then when I got home I combined the seahorse with the watch shot (taken out of water) and bubbles from my previous attempt. I think it turned out pretty cool.


http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/234/leftbite3web.jpg (http://img42.imageshack.us/i/leftbite3web.jpg/)

[PlayersZ28]

Great work! I also so the first post and was going to hit the back button but scrolled down to see what it was about anyway. Maybe put one of your pics in the first post to hook those like me. :)

I especially like your description of the shots and setups.

[creechjs]

http://img509.imageshack.us/img509/6087/leftbite3darkweb.jpg (http://img509.imageshack.us/i/leftbite3darkweb.jpg/)

[creechjs]

Went ahead and shot the timer today. I actually think this is my favorite pic as far as lighting of the watch goes. Most of the watches I shot had black bezels which are so hard to shoot and silver, when lit right, just shines.

http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/5713/timer1web.jpg (http://img525.imageshack.us/i/timer1web.jpg/)

[creechjs]

http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/5093/bluedoobie3web.jpg (http://img97.imageshack.us/i/bluedoobie3web.jpg/)

[creechjs]

Back of the case...

http://img690.imageshack.us/img690/5904/backcaseweb.jpg (http://img690.imageshack.us/i/backcaseweb.jpg/)

[hfoto]

Nice shots! What lens was used to capture these images?

[Todd Lambert]

These are great, and I love seeing your prep work.

Kandyredcoi should see this thread, since I think he's doing some product work that is similar.

Anyways, very nice and thanks for sharing.

[Antz_Marchin]

These are really great, which lens were you using?

Question about the processing, my photoshop skills aren't all that great, is there a tutorial somewhere to explain how to merge these multiple shots and then select the bits and pieces that you want to show in the final image? I know it's various layers I just don't know how to overlay them or choose from each.

Thanks

[kryptic4l]

Am I the only person thinking " It would of been really awsome to use a torch to the watch for the photo :)" Nice set the winter snow one is by far my favorite.

[Cyclop]

Exceptional display photography. Keep up the good work.

[7up]

Excellent shots

thanks 4 shearing

[djlaszlo]

I love your work - thanks for sharing!

bw!