For this assignment, I made a still-life photo of a product I wanted to showcase.
The product is one of many medals for "The Conqueror". Essentially, it is a digital challenge where the person must traverse a certain distance. The distance is determined by the type of medal they want to win. Each medal is themed after famous locations around the world; the medal showcased references the distance of a path that leads up to the top of Mount Fuji.
For people to earn any of the Conqueror medals, they must pay a fee up front and download an app that track the distance the person walks or runs in a day. The person can also determine the time frame in which the challenge can be completed, scaling the difficulty of the challenge to their personal needs.
The marketing point for these challenges is to give contestants a sense of empowerment. By going out of their comfort zone, they are challenging themselves to a reframed objective of exercising in order to reach a medal that affirms their effort and victory.
This is one of my first initial shots of this set. I originally wanted to shoot this photo to incorporate most of the props within the shot.
I wanted to surround the medal with Japanese-themed items. The cloth used is Japanese-themed street wear that it comfortable and visually popping. For me, its the median between wearing something comfortable for a walk out while being immersed in the medal's theme. The contestant isn't actually going to Japan to complete this challenge, but it adds to the aesthetic of working toward the Mount Fuji medal.
Alluding more to the Japanese culture, I added a straw bag at the top of the photo to both help prop up the medal and add a textured background. While someone might not necessarily wear a straw bag as they do this challenge, it signifies the idea of travel. I also added a mempo (half-mask), which Samurai wore along with their set of armor. Since The Conqueror wants the user to feel accomplished, I added this mask since I wanted to draw to correlation of the user to a warrior.
For some final details, I added a map of Japan since going out of your comfort zone is like going on an adventure. I added my Samsung S21 FE to the picture since the user will need a phone to log their distance traveled. I also added the protective sleeve that held the medal since it has the words 'Virtually Anything Is Possible", as well as a sweater that also had to corresponding challenge logo.
For my final images, I decided to zoom in more on the centerpiece since the initial images was too convoluted to easily see what was the main focus of the image. Some items like the straw backpack and the black sweater were mostly cut off from the image.
I had a soft-box light shine from the right side, however it was creating harsh shadows on the left side. I also wanted to shed light (haha) on the reflective, golden accents of the medal. The sleeve also had reflective lettering, which is partially visible. I made sure to make part of lanyard visible and readable, since it had the same text of their catchphrase.
The pictures shown above show the different ways I used a reflector pull off the lighting to fix these issues.
From there, I used Adobe Lightroom to fine-tune the final image.
