Product Photography: How to Use Composition for Impactful Photos

1. Class Introduction: Hi there, my name is Rose. I am a food and product photographer from the Philippines and a Skillshare top teacher. I have been photographing different subjects for almost a decade down. Most are paid work, but some are personal projects and I'm humbled to say that I am completely self-taught. I didn't know about composition when I was just starting out. I will just take photos the way I want. But over time and as I get more clients and made upgrades on my gear, I felt like I needed to level up my skills too. And that is when I studied composition, it took me years to really figure out what it all means and make it simple and applicable in my photography. Because when you search for composition, you will be bombarded with photography jargons like Gestalt, Fibonacci Spiral, Dynamic Symmetry and many, many more. And that is why I created this class. This is something that I wished I had access to back then. This class is perfect for anyone who wants to dig deep into composition in product photography. This is also for beginner photographers who are still learning the ropes and wants to get a solid grasp of composition. This class is made for people like me in the past who get overwhelmed about where to put props and products in a scene. The techniques that you will learn from this class can be useful in photographing products for your small business, for your clients, your blog, or your social media. We will kick off with visual perception and why composition is important in product photography. Then we will move on to longstanding composition rules and guides. Then we will dig deep into how to use colors, lines, shapes, and patterns to create product photos with impact. Then we will move on to intentional cropping, framing, shooting angles and orientation. I will end the class with a demo of how I use composition in my product photography. My goal in this class is to make composition less intimidating but accessible, doable, and fun! No prior skills needed and it does not matter what type of camera you are using. You are very much welcome to join this class. With that said, I hope you'll join me and I'll see you in class. 2. Class Project: Do you know what makes Skillshare classes more fun and exciting? projects! I believe that this is how you can really get the most out of Skillshare classes. By participating in class projects. You can practice, cultivate your skills, get feedback, and it's a great way to connect with your fellow students and teachers. For our class project, you just need to collect two to three props for your product photo shoot, then you will be needing your product or a product to photograph then a camera to photograph your product. It could be a DSLR point and shoot mirrorless or your smartphone then a background or backdrop. It could be as simple as poster papers and fabrics. And finally, a flat surface where you can set up your backdrop. After you collect these materials, you just need to apply whatever you learned from this class and photograph your products using composition rules and guides to best showcase the product. This could be as simple as photographing your products in a plain background with no distractions and intentionally cropping or you could go as grand as arranging a flatly with a combination of different colors and compositions. Once you're done, you can make edits or not. Then upload your work in the class project gallery. Feel free to tell us more about your work and your photo session experience in the project description, I am super excited to see your work and give it some love. In the next lesson, we will officially start with why composition is important in product photography. See you there. 3. Why Is Composition Important?: So why is composition important? Because we want to create photos that appeal to our target audience. When we do product photography, we have a purpose We have a message that we want to tell through our photos, right? Composition can help us better achieve that.. I love what Richard Garvey Williams said in his book, "Mastering composition", that effective use of composition can often help you create something special from even the ordinary. For example, I was asked by a client to photograph this organic scrub together with the ingredients. And it was really challenging because some of the ingredients are yellow, which is a loud color. Plus I had to arrange so many elements and make sure that the subject, which is the organic scrub, is not overpowered. But with the help of composition, which is the process of selecting, arranging, and emphasizing the important elements of an image to support the intended message. I was able to create this photo using the leaves as leading lines and positioning the avocados like that are all part of my composition for this image. Now, even products that are photographed in plain backgrounds require a bit of composition. For example, these brownies photo graphed vertically emphasize height and depth, while horizontally it feels more spacious. Composition is also the reason why this photo of these mango drinks is better than this one. Basically, following composition rules and guides can help us create pleasing images that show good visual design and balance. To dig deeper into why composition is important in our product photography, we will explore visual perception in the next lesson. See you there. 4. Visual Perception: Visual perception refers to our brain's ability to make sense of what the eyes see. For example, when we see this photo, we assume that this product is made of the fruits and vegetables surrounding it. When we look at photos, we unconsciously connect the dots. We try to find the meaning, we look for clues, we want closure. We naturally find images that are in order, symmetric and harmonious, pleasing and easier to look at. Without composition, we just place elements in a photograph wherever we want and hope that it will work out. For example, this is one of the photos I took for a client way before I knew more about composition. Looking at this photo makes me cringe a little because it is confusing and you can't really tell what is my main subject here. What is the message or the intention of this photograph plus I have no idea why I position the knife that way. This is another example where you can't really tell what may main subject and the intent of the photo is. But now when I plan for photo sessions I dedicate a lot of time interviewing my clients, asking for the purpose of the photos and the message we want to tell our viewers or their target customers. When it's time for me to select props, backdrops, and color palettes. I have direction, I know what to prioritize whenever I am composing and arranging the elements in my photographs. So the next time you do a photo session for your product or your client's product put yourself in your viewer's shoes. What do you want them to see? What do you want them to feel and what you want them to do. Do you want them to know that your product is organic? Do you want them to smell the ingredients? Do you want them to salivate? Do you want them to see how crunchy, how rich or how amazing your product is? Asking these questions, practicing and applying composition rules and guides can help you create product photos with impact. And that is what we're going to talk about in the next lesson, composition rules and guides and how to apply them in your product photography. 5. Composition Rules and Guides: In this video, I will share with you composition rules and guides that I maximized in my very own product photography. The first one is the rule of thirds. John Thomas Smith, a painter engraver and antiquarian, first wrote this long-standing rule back in 1797. To follow this rule, you place your subject on the left side or right third of the frame, creating a pleasing composition. Each intersection point is a potential point of interest You just align your main subject along with other elements of the frame along these points to create a balanced and visually interesting image. For example, looking at these photos of the chocolate truffles, the one when I used the rule of thirds to position the subject and the blurry logo looks more pleasing and balanced than this one where the subject is off center. For me, the rule of thirds is the easiest and simplest rule to follow and utilize in my product photography and to be honest, I use it a lot before I was able to explore other composition techniques, which leads me to my second favorite way to compose images, The Diagonal Composition. This is when the elements in the image are organized based on a diagonal line. Diagonal lines help to create depth, a sense of tension and dynamism in a photograph, Dynamism simply means the illusion of motion. Diagonal lines have more energy and impact than horizontal and vertical lines. For example, these brownies looked okay with this composition, but just changing the composition a bit and photographing it diagonally made it more appealing. We see the same effect on the Juanito's bread and the chicken steak. But it does not end there, The direction of your diagonal line has an effect too. If the diagonal runs from top-left to bottom-right, it is closer to how the eye is accustomed to scanning the page, so it will be easier to follow and can suggest tranquility. But the downside is that it has less of a dynamic impact. On the other hand, if the diagonal line runs from the bottom-left to top-right, it is more challenging and dynamic and it gives power, forcefulness, and movement to the picture. To show a few examples. Here's another photo I took for Juanito's bread. I wanted a peaceful afternoon snack feel so I followed the diagonal composition from top left to bottom right. On the contrary, and as the name of this product suggests, I wanted to add more movement and dynamic to this composition so I followed the bottom-left to top-right diagonal line on this image. I also applied the same composition guide to make this chicken crunch more fun, same thing with this bento meals and the chocolate truffles. So you can definitely use this guide in your very own product photography if you want to suggest order and tranquility, you can use the diagonal top-left to bottom-right. And when you want to make it more fun and add power to your photos, you can maximize the diagonal bottom-left to top-right composition. The next guide is the triangle composition. There are many ways you can utilize this First is if you have three elements in your scene, you can place them at points of a triangle within the picture plane, like this. And this, and this. Another way is to form an implied triangle like this. Next, and related to the triangle composition is the rule of odds, which states that an odd number of subjects in an image is more pleasing than an even number I find this rule very useful to follow when deciding how many stacks of products to photograph, as well as in choosing the number of props and the number of products to photograph. This is why learning and practicing composition is such a game changer for me. Following and familiarizing myself with composition rules not only improved my photography, but it made my job so much easier. Whenever I have an overwhelming number of props in front of me, I start with odd numbers, then I try to follow the triangle composition. And if it's not working, I try to follow the rule of thirds or the diagonal composition. And if nothing works, I just go back to following the very basic "Visual Weight" This refers to the visual impact of elements in your composition. The stronger the element's visual weight, the more it draws in the eye.. photos that are bottom heavy appear more natural to us because this is how we see the world. A lot of details and contrast at the bottom and clear blue sky at the top. When we look at photos, we also see gravity In effect. Photos that are heavy at the top can look awkward and imbalance. Colors have an effect on visual weight too, but we will dig deep into that later. Basically, you can use your very own visual perception based on visual weight to analyze if your image is balanced and pleasing. That is what I did in photographing this organic beauty product set, it was challenging to photograph all of the products at once and I could not follow any composition guide that works. So I just used visual weight as guide to position the products and here's the final result. The techniques that I shared with you are just a few of the many other rules and guides that you can maximize in product photography. But it's an easy and doable way to start. Once you master these composition guides, you can explore other rules like the golden ratio with the golden spiral, dynamic symmetry and many, many more. I myself am constantly learning and exploring composition techniques in my photography because repeated use of techniques can lead to predictability in our work. Just to encourage you there that we're all learning and exploring. No matter where you are right now, if you don't stop studying and practicing, it is remarkable what photos you can create. Don't compare yourself with photographers who have been taking pictures for decades. You can only compare yourself to your old you. I hope you will really apply the techniques that I shared and we'll be sharing in this class to create your project and level up your product photography. In the next lesson, I will show you how you can use lines, shapes, and patterns in your product photography composition. See you there. 6. Lines, Shapes and Patterns: Remember visual perception? When we look at photos, we look for connections and clues, right? We connect to photos that are familiar to us. Using lines, shapes, and patterns can help us with that. It can help guide our viewer's eye It can help our photos look homey, and it can also help grab attention. So let's start with using lines. Lines have the power to direct the viewer's eyes throughout the photograph. Look at how you can use any lines present in your scene. Leading lines are a great way of drawing the viewer's attention to something in the picture space. For example, this is a photo I took for another local business, the pouring caramel sauce formed a line leading to the main subject. On this next photograph. My hands and props formed an invisible line to guide the viewer's eyes to this homemade product. Just a tip that the line does not have to be an actual or a continuous line. A row of objects can act as a line and lead the eye. Moving on to shapes. Different shapes have associations with different qualities These associations came from where and why they appear in the world around us. Bold shapes will serve to create bold images. Angular shapes are also more dynamic and grab our attention more than rounded smooth shapes. Rectangles in general represent structure solidity and precision, whereas triangle represents strength, endurance, unity, and trust. Triangles also look like pyramids. That's why they have associations with stability and I use them most of the time when photographing products in groups and when I want to convey a message of trust and stability. On the contrary, an upside down triangle will convey less stability and look imbalanced. Circles represent wholeness, purity and potential. They also have an enclosing and encompassing effect on elements within them, which can be a good use when it comes to composition. Next, repeated use of shapes and lines can help us create patterns. The repetition of shapes or colors in the picture is generally pleasing. Just as rhythm is in music. The forms don't have to be identical. Similarity or repetition in an image can suggest harmony, rhythm, and movement. A technique for showing patterns is to completely fill the frame, the minds eye will assume that the pattern continues way beyond the edges, even if it doesn't. Another technique is to break the pattern. This can add interests, make your viewer curious and allow the viewer's eye to rest as it studies the pattern and so breaks the monotony. From here you can see that there's a lot of tools we can use to achieve the message we want to convey through our photos. We can maximize lines, shapes, and patterns in our composition, to deliver different messages. This is why It is also important to start with why and what. Having a clear message and purpose for your product photos can help in your photo session planning and composition. In the next lesson, we will move on to using colors for high impact photos See you there. 7. Colors: So how can we use color in our composition to create high-impact photos? First, we need to understand that different colors have different effects, meaning and visual weight. So let's start with the weight of colors. Light colors are obviously lighter and darker colors are heavier. For better compositions, aim to position darker and heavier colors at the bottom of the frame. Our understanding of gravity means that images feel top-heavy when darker colors are on top as if the image will fall over. This is the reason why I positioned this red poster paper at the bottom as background for this photo shoot instead of yellow at the bottom. Another example is this image where I gave equal space to the coconut and strawberries. Since red is heavier color. I can feel that the image is heavy on the right. So to solve this, I tried to add more white negative space on the right side and photographed it diagonally to make it more balanced. To further illustrate the idea of visual weight in colors. This is a block of colors created by Brian Peterson from his book, understanding color in photography. In the first image, black is on top, and in the second image black is at the bottom, most of the time, black and other dark colors and tones such as deep red, burnt orange, and dark purple work best near the bottom of the frame. Our knowledge of gravity affects our perception that something is wrong in the first image. In the second image, we feel safer because the composition has a strong foundation of heavy black to support the others. There's clearly much to consider when we are composing with colors in relation to how we match different colors with one another and balance their proportions within the image space. A tool that can greatly help with this is the color wheel. Pairs of colors lying opposite each other on the wheel are considered complementary. These pairs are red and green, orange, blue and yellow, purple. When put together, they have an unusual optical effect and appear to vibrate more intensely due to the quirks of the physiological process. Complimentary colors are also a combination of cool and warm colors. I find this very useful when selecting props to complement the product I am photographing. For example, in this photo of the cocoberry soap, I complimented the pink soap with the green leaves. For this photo, I complemented the cheesy purple yam bread with yellow flowers I notice that photos with complementary colors seem to have something extra. It could be because the contrast of cool and warm colors in a scene seems to create the balance. Next is the analogous colors, which are colors next to each other on the color wheel, composed of one dominant color, usually a primary or secondary color, then a supporting color, a secondary or tertiary color and a third color that is either a mix of the 2 first colors or an accent color that pops. Their harmony comes from their similarity. When put together, these have less bold effect than complementary colors, but can be appealing and easier to tolerate for longer. Aside from visual weight and the color wheel, we also have what we call advancing and cool colors. Advancing colors appear to come towards you. while cool colors appear to go away from you. yellow, red, and orange are advancing colors. Yellow is cheerful, vibrant, and bright. Yellow is the most visible color in the spectrum. It is the first wavelength of light seen by all of us. Red is also bold and energetic and conveys energy, vitality, power, love, lust, desire, passion and excitement. Just like yellow, it catches our attention and can dominate an image. This is why red needs to be used with caution in a sensitive composition. Lastly, orange is the other warm color conveying a sense of vitality and energy. The cooler colors are blue, green, and purple. Blue is a less active color and has associations with the sky and water. It conveys wetness, airiness, coolness, mood, depression, desolation and loneliness. It can also symbolize peace, tranquility, harmony and calmness. Green says nature, health, life, renewal, growth, hope and youthfulness. And finally, purple may suggest mystery and spirituality and as with the other cool colors, it tends to recede relative to warm colors that demand more attention. I know that is a lot to digest and I have more things to say about color, but I hope that this is a good start. Our choice of color is our unique compositional responsibility. the one creative tool that is constantly under our control. To help with this, I have a color wheel app on both my phone and computer. This helps me a lot in the planning stage of my photo sessions. When you plan and compose your photos, you can start with complementary colors and use it as a tool to add elements to your scene. You can also use color to balance your image. Practice looking at photos and have an imaginary weighing scale. It can be overwhelming at first, but try practicing one principal at the time and go from there. In the next lesson, we will talk about crop and framing, so it's less intense and chill. I'll see you there. 8. Crop and Framing: Welcome back Let's talk about crop and framing and how it can affect our composition. Just like the other tools and guides, our main purpose here is to create a pleasing and balanced image that can easily connect with our target viewers. We want to create impactful photos, but easy on the eye. This includes eliminating distractions and framing our photos the best way we can. Our goal is for the elements to float freely within the frame we want the frame to be less apparent, like we are seeing through it on a window without being aware of its existence. If we put elements near the frame, it can cause tension. Placing objects very close to the edge can lead to distraction. Avoid leading the viewer's eye to the corners because it will probably leave the frame, which is the opposite to our goal when creating great product photos, it is better to deliberately crop a portion of that element in the photograph rather than accidentally nicking the edge of it. You can also use foreground elements in your scene to create a compositional frame. It is also worth noting where the photos will be uploaded or printed. I have experiences where I carefully framed and crop my image, but it ended up being awkwardly crop in print or by the online platform I uploaded it to. So keep this in mind when you are shooting and cropping. If your photos will go to Instagram, plan and prepare for a one-by-one crop. If you will use the photos on your Facebook or Instagram Stories, plan and prepare for a nine by 16 crop and the list goes on. Don't worry, I will be attaching a guide in the project and resources tab to help with image size and dimensions for different platforms. The next lesson is somewhat related to crop and framing, angles and orientation. See you there. 9. Orientation and Angles: Just like visual weight, lines, shapes, colors, crop and framing. Orientation and angles have an impact on the overall look of our product photos. Let's start with orientation. Landscape orientation shows more space portrait shows more depth and height. Landscape is best for group photos, portrait is best for photos that will be posted on platforms like Instagram and Facebook, as well as stories. When planning and choosing which orientation to use, you can use these questionnaires as a guide. Number one, Does the shape of product and props naturally suit a particular orientation. Number two, which orientation will avoid including unnecessary clutter? Number three, are there foreground elements that you wish to include that will help support the message? And finally, number four, do you want to convey a sense of space or depth? For example, these are photos I took for a local beauty product. I have the landscape and portrait version. When photographed in landscape orientation, it looks spacious and airy.. For me, It's okay. But looking at the photo as is, I feel like there's too much negative space. This is photographed in portrait orientation. And for me it looks better. The space at the top is okay, just in case my client will add text. I love the foreground and the depth this orientation created leading the eye to our main subject, which is the beauty product. On the contrary, this set of products look better photographed using the landscape orientation versus the portrait. The landscape version looks balanced, spacious, and airy. For me, the space is just right to give importance to the elements in the photo, the portrait version look cramped and products were too close to the edge. So whenever you decide which orientation to use, consider how it will affect the composition Avoid putting objects too close to the frame because it is distracting and not visually appealing. You either rotate your camera for a spacious landscape orientation or just deliberately crop a part of the object to give an illusion that there is more happening outside of that frame. Now, moving on to angles, the three shooting angles I maximized when shooting product photos are flat lay or the top view, the three-quarter shot and straight on. A question that helps me decide on which angle to use is, what part or angle of the product shows more visual interest For example, if the best characteristics of the product can be showcased from a top view angle then doing a flat lay is the way to go for example, in photographing this giant chicken crunch, the best way to show its scale, shape, and size is to photograph it using the top view angle. where in the camera is above the subject. A tip when using this shooting angle is to carefully plan for the composition and lighting. Products shot in flat lay can look flat So to compensate, strategically light your scene and do a graphic arrangement of your props to create a compelling photo. This is your opportunity to show off dynamic compositions The next angle is the three-quarter shot. So moving the camera a little lower than the top view angle. It's like the middle of the top view and the straight on angle The top, side and front of the subject are all visible from this angle. It is also best for most products. For example, this is how the cocoberry soap looked like when photographed using the top view angle. It's okay but you can't really see the characteristics of the soap. This is how it looked like photographed using the three-quarter shot. You can see the top, sides and front of the product. So you have a feel of the texture. You have an idea of how thick the soap is. Just looking at this photo as a buyer, you have a clue of what are the physical attributes of the product. A tip when using this angle is to ensure that the horizontal line in your scene is straight, even if it's not captured in the frame. As if the horizon where visible. That means that the bases of the products should be flat and level. Not doing so will feel like we're stepping into an unbalanced and potentially unnerving environment. To achieve harmony and a true to life vision, don't forget to keep your horizon level even if it's not visible in the frame. The last shooting angle is straight on where we shoot directly at our subject to get the ultimate view of the side of the product, this angle will often result in the top of the product not being visible. This is best when photographing taller and bottled products. For example, These beauty products showed more texture when photographed straight on versus the flat lay, it is the same set of products, but by changing the angle it was photographed gave a totally different feel. The flat lay looked flat while the straight on angle showed more height and texture. A tip when using the straight on angle is for it to look straight. Be careful on how you frame and position your products because even tiny mistakes can break the balance and result in distraction and tension in the image. In the next lesson, we will put everything we've learned into practice. See you there. 10. Composition Demo: Perfume: It's finally time to put everything we've learned into practice. For this photo shoot here's my setup, so I have my GODOX SL60W This is a continuous artificial light that I also use for videos So I'll be using the same light set up to light my subject and our scene I have this T stand to hold my background, which is a white poster paper that I got from a bookstore Then another white poster paper for my background. I positioned it this way to give me a seamless effect. Now for our product, I will be photographing this perfume and these cute curtain holders. For our props, I have these geometric foam blocks because we studied shapes and the effect it can contribute to our composition Then I have these fake ice and for the camera, I will be using my Panasonic Lumix G7 This is a mirrorless crop sensor camera, and I have a 60 millimeter equivalent macro lens attached to it. Basically that is it. So let's start with the perfume. For this demo, I will be maximizing the three shooting angles that we've talked about. I will show you effects of landscape and portrait orientation. And as you will notice, my props are colored white, my backdrop is color white And these fake ice are transparent, but they give the effect of the color white as well. Because I wanted to really emphasize the color of our perfume here. I really wanted to show that off to really give that dreamy and watery and airy and fresh look. Because you know the meaning of blue right? So I really wanted to bring that out into the photograph. So that's why I selected all whites for the props and the background to help me achieve that. So let's start with our first set up, which is the flat lay So for the flat lay, I'll be using this geometric foam I love it as you can see, it's showing us that effect. So the perfume is creating a frame for the name of the brand, which is Bench So let me just show you how it looks like in photo. Hang on. I'll just get my reflector. Reflector is used to lessen the shadow in your scene to help bounce light But that is a topic for a different class, but just showing you how I photoshoot my products. This is the effect of the perfume creating that frame around Bench, which is the name of the brand. It's a retail brand here in the Philippines. So they also have clothing and swim wears Okay, Let's see what the top view angle will give us It's fine, But I can see the text behind bench, the name of the brand. So that's the reason why I maximized the three-quarter shot. And as you will see, I'm really moving close into our product here to really get a nice close-up shot. But let's see if I will backup a little bit. Let's see the effect. I love it. Actually. Let me just get another diffuser. I just wanted to really try that like a double diffusion effect. This is my 5in1 reflector/ diffuser I'm going to have to ask my husband to hold this for me on that side please and here's the effect So this is with diffusion and without. This is also how I add props into my scene. So as you can see, I started with the geometric foam block. Now I will be adding our fake ice. So again, our flat lay or a top view angle. So my lens here have an aperture of 2.8, so that's my aperture. My shutter speed is at 200 because I'm shooting handheld and my ISO is 800. But again, that's a topic for a different class, just really telling you everything, my setup, my settings. So you have an idea. I removed the reflector so I'm seeing that nice effect on the left side. So let's see if it will give us a good image. I'm going to ask my husband again for the double, the double diffusion effect. So we're done with our flat lay and three-quarters shot. Now for our straight on, I will be just changing our setup a bit. So that's our composition. So since we will be photographing straight on and I will be maximizing the portrait orientation. So we need to create height, because that's what we can emphasize with a portrait orientation. Now, let me just choose the side with less imperfection because my son is using this as his toy as well so it has a lot of bumps and dents And then I will be just putting our product on top to really create that height and to give us that pyramid and implied triangle composition. I'm not photographing it like this straight on, I mean, the product towards this direction because you can see the text at the back So later on I will show you what I mean with that But let me just compose this the way I want. I'll be just moving it closer to our light source for more light. I'll be putting our fake ice So I'm using this fake ice to give me that effect of magic, extraordinary, to kind of support the name of this perfume. So I'm hoping I can achieve that. So I'm done with my setup here. So let's take some photos. Again, the straight on angle. So I'm using the rule of thirds to position the name of the brand, which is bench. Okay, So this is how it looks like. Again, as you can see, bench on the rule of thirds. And we are creating this nice pyramid composition. Let me just show you what happens if I photographed it this way. So you can see that the text at the back, its kind of confusing as you can see. There's this blurry text at the back, if you will see at the photo. So let me take a closer photo so you'll see that's the effect if I photographed it this way So that's why I'm moving the product sideways to give us this effect So as you can see, Bench is clear and the text at the back is not dustracting our subject So let me just take another photo of our palpable dreams effect and set up here I love the name of this perfume "Impalpable Dreams". Word for the day. Okay, Now I wanted to try the double diffusion. So again, I'm asking my husband to hold our reflector here or diffusion and then reflector Better.. less highlights, more dreamy. I love it. Okay. Take a closer shot. Okay. So as you can see, the portrait orientation really emphasized the depth and the height of our setup here. So that's what happened when you maximize orientation and your composition based on the product you are photographing. I'm taking additional three-quarters shot with this setup because I can see the effect of the light going through our bottle here creating this effect on this left side. I love it. So I just wanted to capture it the best way I can. Okay, It's really not flattering with a landscape orientation with this setup. Take more three quarter shots. That is it for the perfume. Let us now move on to our curtain holders. 11. Composition Demo: Curtain Holders: For our next product, I will be photographing these cute curtain holders. My original plan is to photograph it on a green backdrop to show you the analogous effect and a complementary color effect. But before I do that, I just wanted to see the effect when photographing it on a white backdrop and just to show you everything, so you'll have ideas and hopefully it will help to get your creative juices flowing So this is how it looks like on landscape. By the way, I photographed it like this because this is how it looks like. It's best for landscape. But if I positioned it this way, then we can use the portrait orientation, but it looks blurry at the back because I'm using a low aperture so I think it's best to be photographed for it to be photographed this way. That's how it looks like with a white backdrop. Now, let's put it on this table napkins to give that effect or to give the viewer's ideas how it will look like Green on green for that analogous color effect Okay, I'll be utilizing the flat lay and the portrait orientation I feel like this table napkin, although it's green, it's a darker shade so I'll be putting it here near the bottom of the frame. If you remember that topic, with darker colors being close to the bottom of the frame. I'm not satisfied with how it looks against the white background so I'll be getting my green poster paper. So again, another poster paper that I got from a bookstore. First I wanted to photograph just this one. Just show you that this is how, this is how I can use the analogous color scheme or the color wheel. So this is the effect. And as you can see, I'm using the diagonal composition because this is how it looks like if it's vertical. So you can see the difference, so vertical and diagonal. So next, let's photograph it with the pink one. Let's see the effect against the green backdrop. Hey, that looks more fun. So from there you can see the effect of color in your photograph and in your composition. I'm actually very happy with the photographs that we were able to create, especially this is a demo, It's hard to do it on the spot while explaining every decision I make. I hope I was able to help you and give you ideas and contribute to your photography journey. In the next lesson, I'll be sharing a cheesy final message to officially wrap up this class. 12. Final Thoughts: Congratulations on finishing this class. Don't forget to celebrate this big win with a friend or a family or your pet or pets. To summarize, composition is important in product photography because it will greatly help us to deliver our message through our photos. Composition can also make our photography easier by following longstanding rules and guides to ensure we create balance and pleasing photos We also learned that we can maximize lines, shapes, and patterns to connect to our audience. That we can use color and color combinations for high-impact photos that crop, framing, angles and orientation is as important as the other elements in putting all our visions to life. One of our main goals in product photography is to grab attention and make sure that it's not wasted by delivering a clear message. Careful planning and composition can help with all of that. I hope you are more inspired and motivated not just to do the class project, but to photograph your products or your client's product using different composition styles and techniques. I hope that the examples I showed you sparked new ideas and got your creative juices flowing Again, these are just easy guides to help you get started. Once you master the techniques I shared in this class, you can explore other complex compositions and that's why I am passionate about photography. There is so much room to grow and explore. It is like a never ending journey. There are so many things you will discover along the way, not just in photography, but in yourself and in your art. Photography gave way for me to see the beauty in the world from huge landscapes to food to handmade products I photograph for clients I feel that it is my mission to bring out the extraordinary out of the ordinary. I feel challenged and excited when clients trust me to photograph the product they worked so hard for. Creating something out of nothing for me is just magical and I hope I was able to share that magic and joy with you in this class. If you are into product, food and iPhone photography, you can follow me here so you will be notified when I publish new classes about these topics. If you haven't already, I really encourage you to do the class project and share it here so we can give it some love. I hope you found this class valuable, but either way, please leave a review so you can help me and your fellow students in deciding if this is the class for them. Thank you so much for choosing me and this class to learn more about composition in product photography, I am rooting for you. I wish you all the best and I hope to see you soon. Bye!