We are always getting questions about photographing soap. So when we came across this post by Gabbie at Simply Soap’s post on the topic (original post here) we thought we’d share it with you. Enjoy! -Anne-Marie
I’ve had a few people ask about my soap photos, so l thought l’d put together a few tips and tricks l’ve learned in the past few years.
A BIG disclaimer is required here though – l am NOT a photographer by any means, not even close. I have no idea whether half of what l am about to tell you is even technically correct, so take it all with a huge grain of salt, and experiment. That’s all l’ve done – l quite often walk around the house with some soap and my camera and take photos in lots of different locations and angles. Eventually, one of them will be a keeper and you’re going to get something you love and a location to remember for future soap photos.
Some basic rules l follow:
1. Take lots more photos than you need – you can always delete them afterwards, and more choice is a good thing!
2. Crop out any ugly backgrounds or distracting elements from your photos using Photoshop or similar.
3. Arrange your soap in a number of different ways, and as you take photos, check if anything bugs you in the photos that show up in the viewfinder – you can move the soap arrangement as you shoot.
4. Never use the flash! I have a piece of sticky-tape on the top of the camera to stop the auto flash popping up, because flash gives really harsh light and makes my soap look awful. l never use a flash for ANY photo.
5. Lighting is really important. Take the time to find a place that gives you a soft, warm light without harsh shadows. This is where walking around your house with a bar of soap is a really good idea.
6. Try to stay away from bright sunlight – in most cases (for me) it is far too harsh – my best soap photos are taken in warm daylight.
MY CAMERA:
It’s a Nikon D80 that l bought on eBay secondhand a couple of years ago, and l just use the standard lens that came with it. My partner John has a Nikon D90 with a longer lens (technical hey!) but it annoys me because the zoom lens is more temperamental and won’t let me get right up close to the subject – l have to move away from it and then use the zoom to close in. Seems a bit silly to me when I’m quite happy to move myself closer! So l stick to my D80 and I’m extremely happy with it. It’s basic but takes GREAT photos.
LOCATION:
This is the location I’ve ended up using the most. Just the kitchen table. It’s not perfect because our house is so dark! But I’ve found that this setup gives a nice soft light from the side window, and if the sun is out, it’s even better because the light becomes warm but not harsh. I’ve tried nearly everywhere else l can think of in the house, and nothing has beat this yet. The bonus is that l can leave everything set out for a while because it doesn’t take up too much room (unlike a light tent) and there is no need for additional lighting. And l can sit down to take my photos when Smoky is not hogging the chair
Here’s a closer look.
The backdrop is a piece of fabric that l drape over a nearby picture frame, which gets put back on the dresser when I’m finished.
Sometimes l don’t set up the backdrop and just take photos using the surroundings as a background. l quite like the interest it adds to the photo. The photo below was taken in a different room with my bookshelf in the background and some sewing stuff on the table. A shallow depth of field blurs the background but still adds some interesting shapes.
Light tents don’t work for me at all. l adore the ‘soap with white backgrounds’ look but for whatever reason have never been successful at achieving it. A while back l bought a light tent on eBay along with two mini studio lights and an array of colored backdrops. l used it once or twice, but after setting up the tent, watching it blow away about 15 times when l used it outdoors, tripping over it because l bought one far too big and can’t figure out how to re-fold it, and then not really being happy with the photos (who is going to Photoshop all those wrinkles out!!??) l gave it up as a waste of time. I just can’t be bothered, it is much easier to take a photo with a ‘real’ background, and for my soap they look far less contrived and not as stark.
Off white backgrounds are brilliant!
Patterned paper can work:
Or the blurred (and messy!) kitchen table…
Crop enough of the background away and you just end up with some nice background colors…
One rule l always try to follow is to not let the background be brighter than the subject; (another reason why white & light tents don’t work for me). I’ve found that if l place my medium colored soap with a background that is also medium toned, then it seems to be easier for the camera to balance it all out and produce a nice even toned photo. But if I put red soap on a stark white background, it just doesn’t seem to work. I’m sure there is a technical name for this (l read it in a photography article once) but l can’t remember it.
ARRANGING YOUR SOAP
I try not to arrange my soap too much, because I’m no good at ‘staged’ shots. I’ve found that just keeping it simple gives me much better results and prevents things from appearing too contrived. I take photos of my soaps while they are stacked on the tray waiting to go to the curing rack…lined up in their original log formation…stacked in twos or threes…or sometimes quickly arranged in a white bowl or tin bucket. Every once in a while l pull off something a little fancier (the gumleaf & green soap photo a few pics above, and the honey soap photo below) but mostly l keep it extremely simple.
Side angles are always more interesting than front on shots…it creates more ‘drama’ in the composition and forces your eyes to move around and take in all the other elements. Staring at a bar of soap that is just shot front on is not quite as effective. (just my opinion, and l am sure l will contradict it by the end of this post!)
Side Note: Trim up your soaps! l love this photo because of the lovely sharp smooth edge of the soap, but can you imagine what it would have looked like all crumbly and crooked? I check all of my ‘photo’ soaps before arranging them and remove fingerprints, crumbs, and rough edges.
l don’t use this arrangement very much, but l like how this photo turned out.
As mentioned before, try to keep arrangements simple (not too contrived)
The apple ‘prop’ is terrible! When l look at this photo it makes me laugh, it is yelling ‘HEY, she made apple scented soap and just got a random apple out of the fruit bowl and plonked it there’. There’s nothing original about it, the greens don’t even match, and it does nothing for me. If anything you look at the apple more than the soap. I’ve learned to just not go here
Sometimes a simple row is nice, but look at it from a different angle. (l also love the warm wood background, it has stopped the soap from looking too stark)
Put your soap IN something – this helps keep the arrangement tight and meaningful. Instead of a multitude of soaps floating all over the kitchen table, they are all packed in together in a bowl or a dish or a basket, and it is much easier to get a well composed photo.
Make a soap stack! l love these with a nice background. If you can change the aperture settings on your camera, go for a fuzzy background (l think it is shallow depth of field?) Get up close to the stack and try lots of different angles. I always try to get all of the soaps facing mostly the same way, so the tops of the bars are getting the same sort of light. Shadows are okay, but let them fall on the parts of the soap you don’t care about so much.
Soaps in a metal bucket with a simple tea towel. Keeping it SIMPLE
GET CLOSER!
Get up close to your soap! Close-up shots are perfect for showing off decorated soap tops, botanicals or a pretty swirl. Make sure your focus is super-sharp, and you can also sharpen a little bit more in Photoshop afterwards. l especially love getting in close to the ingredients.
PSd. yup, l just broke my ‘front on’ rule – but the rolls of the tea towel break up the ‘straightness’ a bit. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it!
LOVELY LIGHTING:
My previous house was perfect for taking soap photos. The sun came in through the kitchen window, but very softly and gently, warming the windowsill, the bench, and casting a beautiful soft glow over the soaps. I don’t miss living in my house, but gee l miss my mini photography studio that made all my soaps look so beautiful. l hardly had to do a thing – just plonked the soaps in a bowl, and grabbed the camera. l have to try much harder now to take a good soap photo because my new house is a little darker and doesn’t encourage natural light as much.
Look at the glow on these orange soaps, it’s all just from soft natural sunlight coming in (my previous) window.
l love this photo, the light has picked up the soap curls beautifully.
This is one of my favorite soap photos ever – with the soap in a noodle bowl in front of the windowsill. l love the light on the top bar and the sugar crumbs….ahhhh! It didn’t look this nice when looking through the view finder, but when it loaded onto the computer, l was so glad l had spent some money on a really good camera. lt has paid for itself over and over again. l quite often think it finds things in a photo that l never even dreamed were there. It seems to have a knack of picking up the light so much better than a little automatic camera.
I hope all of the above has helped with some ideas for taking your own soap photos!
When looking for photography inspiration l often check out the soap listings on Etsy. Dennis Anderson takes beautiful soap photos. He’s got the whole white background thing worked out. Erin from Inner Earth Soaps also takes amazingly gorgeous photos which l love to admire. Oh, and l also adore the photos of the amazing soaps from a Spanish soap maker here – she stages the photos beautifully and l am totally in awe.
Happy soaping, and happy snapping!
I really enjoyed this article! Thanks for posting it.
Hi Jamie!
We are so glad you had a chance to read this guest post — it’s one of our favorites on how to photograph your products. If you get a chance to get any fun photos of your soapy projects, be sure to share them with us on Bramble Berry’s Facebook page. =)
-Becky with Bramble Berry
https://www.facebook.com/BrambleBerry
Wow. I was searching the net on photographing soaps and found this this. Thanks so much. This was good information and I can’t wait to try some your suggestions.
Hi Barbara!
We are so glad that you found the Soap Queen blog and can’t wait to hear how your photography goes. =)
-Becky with Bramble Berry
Thanks for the article..however I think your “new dark house” shots showcase the soaps with a very sophisticated feel. They looked good enough to eat!! I like the your confidence in not using white backdrops..{this is what most photography courses recommend}..I’m going to give it a try..
Thanks again Kaye
Hi Kaye!
Let us know how your photographs turn out, we’d love to see how this post has helped our customers! 🙂
-Becky with Bramble Berry
Heart felt Thank You for the mini photo lesson. I produce beautiful soap but photos don’t show their beauty or the packaging I so carefully wrap in Japanese paper. I hope I can incorporate your suggestion and produce some photo’s worthy of my product. God Bless and may your 2013 be very prosperous indeed. Please look at my FaceBook page “MyFourGirls Soap and More”. Thanks!!!
Keep soapy for a beautiful life!
Wanda Arnette
So glad you enjoyed the post, Gabbie did such a great job! 🙂
-Becky with Bramble Berry
Love this post – thanks. Photos are the bane of my life. I love taking them but always battle for the right look and lighting.
Thank you for this brilliant post!
Those soaps/photos are really gorgeous!
Great tips and gorgeous photos!!! But doesn’t Carol Ochs have Simply Soap trademarked?
http://carolochs.com/simplysoap.php
Looks like it got trademarked earlier this year in the U.S. I believe the other business in question is not U.S. based. Soap Queen is actually having this issue right now with another person using our name in another company. Soap Queen is trademarked in a variety of classes but it only holds for the U.S. and any other country I trademark it in. So, that might be the difference. I just know I love the photography tips and am delighted to repost it to help other small businesses.
If it comes down to who was using it first, I’m pretty sure Carol would win. But hey, I’m not a trademark attorney either.
Woah, did you just change your post….cause I swear I didn’t see all that there the first time. LOL Doesn’t matter though, if she’s not in the US, then no problem. And I agree, the tips are great no matter what!
Thank you for this wonderful post! I struggle with product photography, and there are some really great tips in here. I definitely need a DSLR! 🙂
This is great because everything I’ve read previously was to use a lightbox, keep things simple, no clutter. This article has shown that sometimes it’s better to have some visual additions to make the soap even more appealing. I’ve put this idea to good use already, thank you.
These tips are really helpful! I also bought a tent but what a mess! I have to set it up each time and indead a wrinkled background. Not what I had expected it to be. I did even iron the backgrounds 🙂
So these tips are very helpful!
OH GOODY GOODY!:D More tips on photographing soap/body products. Just need to get a good camera & I’m set 😉 Thanks for posting this!
~Nickie~
I’ve been a fan of Simply Soap for a while now, too. I love Gabbie’s gorgeous photos. She keeps things simple and lets her lovely soaps speak for themselves. Thanks for sharing this, Anne-Marie. And thanks for all of your tips, Gabbie!
Thank you so much for this post! It was right on time. I love that they are perfect in a simple way. I used to think that you needed to have a white background. But I am finding that natural light looks so much better. Here’s my issue though-I recently bought a Canon Powershot SX 150 IS camera to take my product pictures for my Etsy store and I have no idea how to use it. Lol. What I mean is I don’t know how to do what Gabbie did in her pictures. I don’t know what aperture or shutter speed is when it comes to using it. I know how to turn the camera on and point at a subject and take a picture. I recently ordered a Teach Yourself Visually Digital Photograpgy book to try to teach myself. But it didn’t go into specifics on how to do it. Can you point me in the right direction on where I can learn how to take pictures like Gabbie. I just need to know what buttons to press on my camera and if I need to change the settings (aperture, shutter speed) and what to change it to. Thanks so much for the post!
I came across bellapop.com a few months back. She has several classes that may help. I found shootflyshoot.com last week, but haven’t looked into it much. Try youtube! I’ve found lots of how-to things on youtube…maybe you can find something. Hope this helps some 🙂
~Nickie~
Nickie,
Thanks so much!I have tried Google and Youtube. I am looking for more indepth information geared towards someone who has no idea how to use a camera. Most of what I am finding is not a tutorial. I am looking for the specifics like what each button means, how to use the buttons, what is aperture and shutter speed, what to change the settings on my camera to, etc. I will keep trying.
Thanks,
Jackie Morris
Nickie,
I just checked out bellapop.com and I think that may be just what I need. It looks like she has several online photography classes for beginners like me. This is what the Shooting in Manual class shows:
CLASS OUTLINE
Week 1 – buttons and knobs and an overview of what does what (the very basics)
Week 2- aperture
Week 3 – shutter speed
Week 4 – ISO, white balance, metering, the histogram and focus points
Thank you so much Nickie for sharing this information with me!
These are great tips and wonderful photographs!!
Hi guys!
Yes the article was written by me, that’s my kitchen table (and cat LOL!)
Since selling Simply Soap to Kelly l have been studying a diploma in photography and have learned SO MUCH, it is fantastic. I’m absolutely loving it. I’ll have to re-write that post, because there are so many things l could add to it now that l know a little bit more 🙂 When l look back on those photos l immediaely think ‘oh, l should have done x, y and z, and the photo would have been even better’.
Thanks everyone for your lovely comments, and happy soaping 🙂
Fixed it – so sorry for that mishap – you are so great at photography – and I love your style of writing as well.
Are you missing soap terribly or are you still actively creating as a hobby now?
Hi Anne-Marie!
Thanks for taking the time to fix it, much appreciated 🙂
I’m not really missing soaping yet, but l am still enjoying using it, and Kelly was nice enough to gift me lots of her soaps, so l have plenty to keep me happy for a good while. The only thing l do miss is that moment when you cut into a log to see if the intended design worked! I am sure when my stash starts to get low that l will be making more, l’m really looking forward to making some plainer soaps without as many colours in them.
Gabby I am glad you took up photography, you have a natural talent for it just like soap making. After I took my class in photography (b/wfilm) I notice the same thing oh I could have done that or this. Plus I critique more on my and others photos that they should have done or look for before taking the shot. Have fun in you photography classes.
This blogpost was done by Gabbie, not Kelly. Gabbie was the owner of Simply Soap and she wrote that blogpost before Kelly took over simply soap early this year.
Gabbie is one awesome photographer! I like that Kelly kept everything Gabbie had done when she took over the business. Did I mention Gabbie is one awesome photographer? 😀
Good catch – fixed it! =) The photography and writing is so wonderful.
Thanks for the tips. I am always working on taking better photos. It is a major challenge.
Thanks for the great article on photography soaps or other things.
Kelly you may not think you are a professional at photography bit its not being a professional that matters but understand the light, shadows, composition and surroundings, and of course your camera and what it can do. You have that skill, a natural talent of understanding photography. Your vocabulary is right and you completely understand what it takes to take a great picture.
One thing you can do to your flash is put a dark stocking or white masking tape over it. The white and red is possible but due to the grey scale factor its hard for your camera to adjust best thing is slow down the Shutter Speed and open up you FS. You should take up photography you are amazing at it. I took several classes but it was only film which I enjoined immensely, it was amazing watching the image go from the camera to the projector onto fiber paper is a experience you will never forget. Keep up the amazing talent you have. And thank you for this information cause in photography there is always new techniques and skills to be learnr from another
Learn*
Hi! Love these ideas. Where did you get the tea towel material? Online or is there a local place to get it? I love the effect it gives on the photo.
You can often find tea towels and other background materials at your local craft stores! 🙂
-Becky with Bramble Berry