Pettit Photoshoot
Photography has been a big hobby for me over the years. I naturally enjoy shooting wooden boats, but I also like many other types of photography including landscape, night, nature and other different specialties. Last fall, I had the opportunity to do some product photography for one of my varnish and paint suppliers, Pettit Paint.
A good friend of mine is the Vice President of Sales for Pettit. He contacted me and asked if I could help them out with a varnish brochure they were developing. They already had a layout, some stock boat photos, but were looking for detailed shots of wood surfaces and varnish application. Of course I agreed.
The Wolff Advertising agency visited the shop. Marty Wolff and his Art Director, Chris, had a plan on what pictures they needed to fill certain preassigned spaces in the brochure. They provided some of the props and a collection of clean but empty product containers. I set up my DSLR on a tripod tethered to my iPad so I could share each shot as it was taken and we could adjust settings and layout as necessary. I used a single flash in a softbox to augment the ambient light in the shop.
In addition to being the photographer, I was also the “hand model.” We shot a variety of images including an overall materials image, individual product cans, applying wood sealer to teak, applying varnish to sealed wood, close ups of different wood surfaces, and wiping down a previously varnished surface.
The photos here are the untouched photos straight out of the camera without adjustments.
The final varnish brochure is available here:
pettit-marine-varnish-prep-and-application
While not as exciting as photographing boats at speed, it was a fun and rewarding experience and an honor to photograph products that I use often in the shop.
