Working to a Brief: Assignment 4 REVIEW

In this live show, Karl reviews each of the submissions for our fourth ‘Working to a Brief’ challenge and announces the most ‘on-brief’ winning image.

For this brief, members were tasked with creating a rim-lit product shot of a pair of earphones on a black background (you can find the full brief here). This particular brief may have appeared simple at first glance, but challenges included controlling the rim light, positioning the products and achieving sufficient depth of field.

Karl offers his feedback on each of the images, as well as tips and advice for shooting products like this.

These projects provide a unique opportunity for photographers to practice executing a professional brief.

To watch Karl tackle this brief himself, check out EarPods Live Product Shoot.

Find out more about Working to a Brief.

Comments

  1. New to the group and missed the opportunity to have a go but I was well impressed by the fact you went through everybody’s entry . I’m working my way through the courses and by far the biggest plus I’ve picked up is that you don’t need all the top gear but you do need clips, reflectors and black card! I now have to explain to my wife why I’ve bought a mannequin head.

  3. Stephan Jarvis

    Thanks for the feedback, Karl. A nice surprise being in folder 1! Will definitely be having another attempt after the next live show to refine the shot and get a better understanding of a few things. Thanks again for all the effort you and the team put into this platform, it’s been such a great help so far with my attempts to transition into more studio based work. Can’t wait for the next brief!

  4. This brief was a really tough one. After i was ready with my picture i really thought i´ve nailed it. But only in the second folder. “The next picture will be my best picture” . I look forward

  6. Hi Karl,
    Very educational to listen to all your comments about the headphone shoots.
    However during this 2 hour review I must have missed the review of just my shot.
    Could you please tell me in what folder it is, so I can watch it again.

  7. Hallo Karl, ich konnte wegen der Zeitverschiebung nicht live dabei sein, aber vielen Dank für deine Bewertung.
    Ich bin ein bisschen über mich selbst enttäuscht, das ich die Erwartung nicht erfüllen konnte.

    Aber nur durch Kritik wird man besser und dies ist sehr hilfreich.
    Ich finde deine Vorgehensweise und deine Art wie du alles in deinen Shows erklärst, einfach fantastisch.

    Beste Grüße Maik

  8. Hi Karl!

    I was too busy yesterday during the live review so I had to watch it later at night. What a nice surprise to know I made it to folder #1!!! And also to your best pick of that folder along with another participant. Thanks a lot for your words!

    I took the photo just the night before the date limit. 1,5 hours for the shooting and another1,5 hours for post-production. A quite challenging brief as you mention. Looking forward to do some future briefs!

    As a commercial product photographer for the last 20 years, I can say your teaching platform is always on top. There’s always that little trick I haven’t thought of! THANKS!

    1. Hi, that’s great to hear but unfortunately I can’t see who you are, I’m guessing you’re Marcel? Anyway congratulations!

  9. Hi Karl
    Thank you for this. Learned so much in the creation and in your critique here to take away and practise on.
    I wish you well
    Dave

  10. Hi Karl,

    Thank you for the review of my image. Totally agree with your critique and I have a lot to work towards. I’ve invested in new lighting and a camera body to help my creativity flourish. Can’t wait until the next one.

    Jimmy Daboul

  11. Hey Karl, thank you for your review !
    I’m so happy to be in the last 15 best pictures ! Indeed, i struggled setting the earphone, i shot it upside down with the earphones hung by the wire on a giraf arm. Didn’t know how to hold it correctly.
    It’s definitly an area of improvment !
    I’m looking forward too seeing you do the shot !

    Thx for what you do !
    Best regards,
    Arnaud Guillotin

  12. Thank you very much Karl for the review! It does not matter which group I placed, it’s all about learning and you highlighted both good and to work on areas. That is constructive criticism. Lighting is challenging and I’ve learned lots with your approach. Definitely a tough challenge and it was 110% worth the effort.

    This was my first time participating. Looking forward to the next one!

    Patrice

  13. nattsteer

    Hi Karl,

    Thank you for the feedback.

    For both of the brief challenges I entered the feedback I have received has mostly been around colour balance/grading. I have a visual impairment that affects how I see colour, amongst other things. Do you have any advice on how I might be able to get colours as I want them when I cannot trust my eyes? I use a colour checker, but either I am using it incorrectly or there is something else wrong in my workflow. I usually take a picture of the checker and neutralise using the grey square and sync that colour temperature to the other shots in the session.

    Any advice greatly appreciated.

    1. Hi Natt, the colour of the headphones was mostly OK and neutral on the front and right but on the left you had a blue tinge coming into the shadows. It’s hard to say why this would have been, there may have been something blue nearby or it could have been daylight from a blue sky. As your whites were already neutral there is nothing you could have done further in post other than reduce saturation in the shadows but if you can’t see that because of your visual impairment then it will be difficult. Using a colour checker card and balancing every colour on the card could be very laborious for every shoot, doing the grey square neutralisation is quick and easy. If you’d like to know more about using the colour squares then we have a course on that somewhere here! Do you have anyone else that can check colour for you? I wouldn’t worry too much about it, a friend of mine is a top landscape photographer and he is very colour blind but still turns out stunning work! I don’t know what your visual impairment exactly is but in PS there are also some preview settings for different types of colour blindness. I hope that helps and thanks for entering the brief challenge. All the best Karl.

      1. nattsteer

        Hi Karl,

        Thank you for the reply! I have the latest version of PS, but didn’t know about those preview settings, I will check them out. I don’t really have anyone I can ask who would be able to give me an answer other that “that looks nice”.

        I shot this in my bedroom of the council flat I share with my Mum and Dad on a crop sensor camera, that I won a grant for and second hand cheap Chinese strobes, so to make it to folder 2 was more than I ever expected!

        Thank you for all you do.

        1. Hi Natt, well I’m very pleased to hear that you’re creativity and tenacity is helping you produce images like this in less than an ideal studio space! Hopefully the comments I made on everyone’s work during the show will help you understand more about lighting and of course next weeks show I’m going to try and do it myself – Let’s hope I don’t mess it up! 🙂

  15. Stephan Jarvis

    Looking forward to this but unfortunately, due to the time difference, I won’t be able to attend live. That was a tough challenge but a good exercise to try and apply some of the things I’ve learnt so far from KTE. Still, lots of room for improvement and better knowledge. I hope Karl has a future session planned showing us his attempt!

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