Photography of natural wood furniture

Photography of “natural wood” furniture requires a very specific approach.

The object needs to be thoroughly selected and prepared for the photo shoot. Cleaning of the wood furniture is quite essential. There can be no dust or fingerprints on the object as they can become very visible at high resolution even for large objects. For more information please check this link

Now comes the most important factor that contributes to the final result - lighting setup and use of light modifiers & reflectors.

As you can see in the photo, the product has a semi-glossy finish, and if everything is done properly, we can (or should be able to) obtain this desired effect.

In my lighting set-up, I had to use a semi-transparent screen at the back of the object to throw in some soft light from behind. Two strobe lights were used at the front at a low angle to provide some light inside the table. These strobe lights need to be covered with a double-layered light modifier. A black reflector was then positioned above the object to control the amount of light reflection on its top surface. Finally, a silver reflector was placed at the front to reflect some additional light under the tabletop.

As for camera setup, a low contrast setting was used to preserve all details in shadows and lights. Black and white levels will be adjusted during post-production editing.

The use of modeling lights can also be helpful.

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