Professional Knife Photography Techniques

Photography Tips

Product photography is one of those specialized niches in the photography world that requires a skill set all of its own. As professional photographers Michal Tomaszewicz and Maciej Krawczyk have come to find out, photographing knives is especially difficult. Not only are they trying to make a flat, grey piece of metal look sexy, it just so happens that product is also highly reflective, which makes lighting it quite complicated. Take a look at the behind the scenes footage below to see how the two tackled the shoot:

To keep reflections off the blades and still maintain separation from the background, the team of photographers used a softbox aimed at a white board which was suspended over the knife. A second light at lower power was also aimed at the white board. The knife was on top of a clear sheet of glass with a third light below to provide back lighting. Two barn doors were added to the long sides of the knives to further aid in reflection prevention.

To capture the photographs, a hole just large enough to fit a lens was cut into the white board. The photographers mounted a Hasselblad on top of the board and shot the knives from above.