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Please Note: These are VERY LOW RESOLUTION sample images. The ‘originals’ are much CLEARER and more VIVID.

PRIOR - NEXT - BACK

At first glance you might think taking a photo of a shadowbox would simply be 1) turn on some lights, 2) focus the camera, and 3) ‘hit the button’.  But that’s not the case.  First of all, because of the ‘depth’ of the individual compartments, when you position your lights to properly illuminate and reduce shadows within some ‘boxes’ you end up casting shadows in some of the others.  That means you have to take multiple photos with lights adjusted optimally for each to minimize those hard shadows.

BTW, you CAN NOT just use a large ‘softbox’ as then the image looks way too ‘flat’ and has no ‘life’.

You also will quickly realize that because some of the contents of the little boxes are much darker than the others,  You also have to take photos with different exposure settings to compensate for that.

And finally, because some of the objects are one color and are only recognizable BECAUSE of the shadows (such as the Olympic medal - a reproduction by the way), you have to light and expose for just those boxes individually. 

(There is another VERY IMPORTANT technique to getting this right, but you’ll have to figure that one out yourself!)

Finally, once you have all your photos taken, you composite (combine) them in Photoshop to arrive at your final proof. 

We also shot the photos for the three posters pictured below. The process for each of them was equally involved.  Smashgraphix designed these and MANY others. They really are ‘works of art’ and are ideal for your study, den, or office.

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