Most people assume good product photography needs a proper studio, a rented space, several thousand pounds of lighting, and a day booked out for it. This week’s video shows the opposite. I shot an entire product photography session in a small home studio setup, and I want to walk through why that works and what it actually takes.
The setup itself is simple. A single of continuous key light, a background that packs away in a minute and a corner of a room that has nothing special about it until the gear goes up. What matters is the control. Product photography lives or dies on control – control of light, control of reflection, control of the small details that decide whether an image looks good or looks like a snapshot. A home studio gives you that control just as well as a rented one, as long as you know what you are looking at.
The workflow I use is deliberately simple too. Setup and test shots first, checking reflections and shadow edges before a single final frame gets taken. Then the shoot itself, shot in batches. Editing follows a fixed order, which is colour and exposure first, cleanup and retouching second, final crop, graphic design and export last. Consistency is what makes a brand recognisable through set of product images.
Full video is on YouTube if you want to see the current setup and the edit side by side.
I am moving house at the moment, and for the first time in a while there is a garden that is mine to sort out. Not much to say about it yet, but it will show up here as it takes shape.
Published 26 Jul 2026 · Business
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