Rob Andrew Photography Blog - Photography Tips and Tutorials

Faygo bottle professional beverage photo.

How to Photograph a Glass Bottle

The Shot If you've ever attempted to photograph glass bottles, especially transparent ones, you probably know a few cuss words. Today we're covering commercial beverage photography camera settings, lighting setup, and styling—plus common mistakes to avoid. Camera Settings For most bottles, I am using a focal length of 100mm (on a 100mm macro lens). It tends to introduce less distortion and foreshortening of a bottle and we want things nice and straight and level. The longer focal length also helps…

Camera Settings for Product Photography

If you're new to product photography work, its a whole different game than portrait and lifestyle, with its own set of camera settings, lighting techniques, tools and methodology. Lets dive in and look at some of the fundamentals! Camera Settings PREFACE: Before getting to camera settings it is MUY IMPORTANTE to tell you that you should always shoot products from a tripod or camera stand. This way you can use whatever shutter speed you want and not worry about shake/blur.…

Food Photography Lighting Setup: Burger

Overview I'm often asked for my "go to" food photography lighting setup. There is no single setup that's going to work for all food, but there are some general rules. Today we will focus on a cheeseburger lighting setup and talk a bit about why it works for a shot like the above. This is an in-restaurant shot done in a short time on a modest budget without a professional food stylist, the marketing team at Burger Lounge styled this…

Political Portraits: Corporate Head Shots with Contextual Cowbell

Mayor Todd Gloria I approach campaign portraits a bit like corporate head shots. After all, the subject is in a great job and he happens to want to keep it. The purpose is a bit more specific, however, so the primary difference for me is context or, more simply put, backgrounds. We wanted to show Todd Gloria in real backgrounds in the actual San Diego community he serves and in the context of issues that he cares about. As a…

Getting Ready for your Professional Head Shot

A genre I really enjoy shooting is studio and outdoor head shots. Professional head shots can be highly useful for Linkedin, modeling agencies, acting profiles, dating apps, YouTube thumbnails and so much more. A professional head shot can give you an edge over other individuals in your field and help elevate your professional image. Although technically a head shot is a closeup of head and shoulders, the concept of "head shots" here in San Diego can range from a tight…

Shooting Still Photos and Video Together

Flex alert here, guys. I shot Drew Brees recently, alongside a video crew in San Diego. Drew was a laid back, accommodating dude with a generally great attitude towards the whole crew. It was a high level day on my fun-o-meter. Enough about me. Today we set out to answer the question: Can we shoot video and photo simultaneously on the same day? Should we do that? Convenience vs. Quality After all, the talent is there, lighting is there, maybe…

7 Photography Business Mistakes to Avoid

Ok, ok, this post should probably have been titled, "6 things I repeatedly F'd up over the past ten year period and sometimes still do, and regret" but that is a little wordy for our purposes. So read up and start learning from my past mistakes! Not Having a Contract Probably the top answer to any photography business dilemma is "put it in the contract next time." A contract for all jobs large and small can prevent almost all conflicts…

Shot Lists for Photoshoots: What, Why, How

One of the first questions I ask a new potential client is "Do you have a shot list?" I'm happy to work with them either way but it helps me gauge how much they may have thought about the details and logistics of their shoot. Generally, when clients come to me with a list of shots, it means they've done some prep work, have a good idea of their brand identity (or brand identity they aspire to), and may already…

Photographing a Mayor

I didn't select these photos. There was around 500 of them. Todd Gloria selected these images with the input of his trusted friends and San Diego-based team. I thought it would be cool to show Todd's selects here instead of mine. Often the head shots the client chooses are quite different than what I would pick for them. Here we actually aligned pretty closely on the choices. Maybe we can attribute that to the frequency with which public figures are…

Simulating the Sun with Flash

When I learned this simple trick for simulating the look of "golden hour" sunlight with flash, my life as a photographer changed for the better. Suddenly those overcast days were just an extended golden hour, providing the benefit of soft front light with the always-welcome golden back light. I'll give you the simple breakdown so you can start using this to get that sunny look when weather doesn't cooperate. All of the images were made on an overcast day with…

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