TAG Heuer Luxury Watch Shoot

Photographing a TAG Heuer dive watch, Karl demonstrates another lighting setup and shares some top tips for capturing advertising-style watch shots.

Starting with his shooting angle and lighting setup, Karl explains his setup and the lights he uses to create the final image. With four important areas to light — the watch face, strap, base surface and background — you’ll see what modifiers Karl uses, how he controls the reflections in the shiny metallic surfaces, and how he controls the gradient lighting in the shot.

Finally, Karl experiments with adding water droplets to the shot, explaining the trick he uses to carefully manipulate the drops and control them for the best results.

In this class:

  • How to photograph watches
  • How to control gradient light
  • Using reflectors for additional light
  • Creative ideas for product photography
  • Lighting techniques for graduated background light

To learn more about photographing watches, check out Luxury Watch Photography Using One Studio Light and Luxury Watch Product Photography.

Questions? Please post them in the comments section below.

© Karl Taylor

Comments

  1. Karl
    I take it when you did this shot in 2017 you didnt have Picolite with projection attachment to light up the TAG logo?

    1. Yes that’s correct as you can see this was done with Elinchrom lighting but it must have been around or before 2013 as this is my old studio which i moved out of in 2014.

      1. Most Rolex images are done at this angle! You were doing it 8 years ago!
        Why dont you persuade Rolex to come back to photography?

  2. Hello Karl. Do watch manufacturers still photograph their watches for advertisements or has it gone more towards CGI these days?

    1. Hi Tim, it’s a mix. For example Rolex are all CGI but others such as Blancpain and Omega I believer are still photographic.

  3. Hi Karl, I’ve got a problem right now, I can’t watch any video on your website, but I already have a subscription to this plan what it’s $ 14.00 USD / 1month

    1. Hi Tripitaka,

      I have just looked into your account on our site and believe I have solved this issue, you should be able to view all the videos on the site now. If you continue to have any issues just let me know via email at .

      Thanks
      Emma

  4. Hi Karl,
    I am new here. First of all congratulations for your brilliant job.
    My question: What is the liquid product you are using on the table?
    Best regards.
    Javier

  5. I’ve shot a watch once in the dark using a long exposure and a gradient on my phone’s screen to paint the light. A few exposures and some photoshop later I ended up with a pretty darn good shot: https://pixelflux.net/images/casiowatch.jpg
    Shooting time was about 10min. The quality is not super clean like yours, Karl, it was only a 5D Mark III it was shot on, but I was still quite happy with it! Thoughts?

  6. Hi Guys, i’m afraid there isn’t a retouching tutorial on this video as it wasn’t recorded and this video is from a couple of years ago. However I can tell you that the only retouching is the layering together of the separate reflections , the blending of the different applied reflections. The techniques to do this are covered in our ‘post production’ section https://visualeducation.com/post-production/ however I will have some new watch photography tutorials for 2018 and I will of course include any retouching as part of those. Kind regards Karl.

  7. I, too, would very much like to see the Photoshop tutorial you mentioned at the end of this video. Please make it available soon.

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