From wayward shoelaces to different surface textures, there are a few challenges you can expect to face for this week’s challenge. As always though, the key thing to keep in mind is the light. What mood do you want to create? What type of light will best show the material of the shoe? What are the key features that need to be lit? When you break it all down and think about the shot, you’ll see that creating a good image of a shoe suddenly doesn’t seem so impossible. There’s plenty of ways you can get creative too! Try different backgrounds, experiment with long exposures and light painting (as we did in our live footwear photoshoot) or even try a more ‘lifestyle’ approach.

If you’ve never photographed shoes or footwear before, the classes below provide a few different setups and ideas, as well as include a number of tips that you may find useful.