Nonstock

One of my plans for 2007 is to explore ways to make money with photography beyond my affiliation with iStock. Obviously there are some caveats; I can't violate my exclusivity agreement with iStock, and I can't quit my day job. One path I've begun walking is doing photography for my company. I work for a large manufacturer of equipment and reagents for the oncology pathology industry. High science stuff. Recently, I shot the two-day symposium that we hosted. That was a lot of fun, and there were some good shots to come from it.

Last week, the marketing department asked me to shoot some products as well. So now I've got that as an ongoing project here. The challenge with that is that our packaging is a plain white box with a white label on it. It's as vanilla as a package design can be. Marketing has plans to upgrade the packaging, to give it a little more visual impact. Until then, I'd planned to shoot it on a colored background. That didn't really fit with what Marketing had in mind, so yes, I shot white on white. Not what I'd intended, but I think it came out OK.

The second product shot at least had a blue box, so that has a little more appeal.

Marketing has also asked if I can do the headshots for corporate bigwigs and the board of directors. I said absolutely! I enjoy doing headshots and portraits, so I think that could be a lot of fun. Plus, to really do it right, I'd probably need one more Alien Bees light. :)