Client: Neiman’s Family Market
Photographer: Marek Dziekonski
Brief: Photograph a total of 80 product/food images in two different set ups within 3h timeframe.

My fellow commercial photographers are probably all too familiar with the challenges we often get to grapple with at photoshoots. One of the most common ones is perhaps limited time. The catalog photoshoot for Neiman’s Family Market was no exception. We were aiming to accomplish the following tasks within the tight, 3h timeframe:

• set up
• photograph 65 products in an overhead configuration
• adjust the set up for a different angle
• photograph 15 remaining products
• tear down

The key to the success of this photoshoot was twofold:

1. To come up with a lighting set up that delivers quality images and that is universal enough to work well across varying product configurations, textures and sizes and to ensure a quick approval of each image.
2. To ensure that the client has all the products ready to be photographed and an efficient system to swap and keep track of them

To accomplish #1 I ended up keeping the lighting simple and setting up just two Profoto D2 1000 lights: one with a large 4×6′ softbox (and a small flag to keep the light from going where it’s not supposed to) and the other with a snoot. I used Profoto’s Air USB to control the light output directly from my laptop. To allow the client to instantly view and and approve the images I set up a shooting station with a Nikon D810 connected to a Dell XPS 15 4K touchscreen laptop via TetherTools TetherPro Cable.

To say that the client had all their ducks in the row would be an understatement. They were ultra organized and ready to go almost as quickly as I could press the shutter button on my camera. All this made for a painless and quick process and a fantastic end result. The finished photos were delivered the same day. Here is what the finished catalog looked like: