Beauty of the Hands of the Holder

Some time back we got into product Photography that had me staring at product pieces through my lens like a German Shepherd staring at a bandicoot Burrough up close. But the picture of a big dog sizing up a rodent has a lot of life and color of it`s own. Product  Photography however  required a dedicated ingection of both life and color in an otherwise lifeless setting of Still Life.

And there is only so much that Designer paper, satin and velvet cloth, imitation pearls and dried leaves, as props can add to the picture.



There was a discovery waiting to be made that changed our perception of how we look at  product shoots. 

And it all started with this shot.

We`ve shot jewellery before, but never in such a setting, and in this shot we found Life. And what did we learn? Well..

      Firstly, a pair of hands provides a realistic depiction of the subject and a good reference to figure out it`s size. Secondly, the hands provide us the human element, so integral to the story of the product.

These shots were neither rehearsed nor posed. It just so happened that Tavishi was showing us her collection and I just happened to have left one Flash head in power ON mode. Thank the Lord for the years I`ve spent as a television cameraperson that makes me such a sniper of good frames.

That`s Tavishi Gupta, the unsuspecting hand model, and it`s not just her hands but the fine manner in which she naturally held the pieces that makes the shots CLICK. A finesse that You see in the store she runs. The store is PinkGold, that showcases the creations of select designers, in the form of dresses, bags, footwear and accessories.  Finally before packing up from Pink Gold, I shot some footwear like this.. Does it look good??

 For the full story of the store check out  AllwhatSheWants 

I`ve got Hands on my mind ever since and that`s what I was looking for when we shot in the house of Rashma Talwar Sud for AllWhatSheWants. Rashma is a bakery expert who has taken her life long passion to a professional level.  An imaginative and intuitive  cook, She specialises in low calorie, low sugar desserts, for the health concious, which are not just home made but hand made.
That`s a shot of the dessert carter herself on the right,


























and for the food shots, we could have played with props and lights here as well but guess what..
Got a pair of beautiful hands.. never need a prop again!
And in the Dessert Carter`s story, the hands made a lot of sense, cause Rashma's hands actually dabble through the dough. The idea being, using hands actually creates bigger air pockets in the dough, making the cake a lot more Fluffy. Click here to know more about the Dessert Carter.

Eventually more and more people lent their helping hands to making allwhatshewants.com and shotstories.net a visual delight, and next in line was Musskan,
 and that litttle elephant by the way is a ring, 
Yes!! that one too..

Do You think You have it what it takes to sport that one on your finger? Can You handle it.. Well "Kiwi by Musskan" has more such jewels with an uninhibited appeal.










Dare You to have a calculater like Musskan`s.

This is Musskan, here to rescue the world from minimalism and modesty, with her bold and vibrant designs, of the semi precious kind. Read her full story here

Next we tried some very precious jewellry at the Tanishq store in South Ex, Delhi with some help form the store staff. Our subject was Tanishq`s Mia collection on the left and a piece from their Glam Gold collection

Most of these pics came to us when allwhatshewants.com went looking for personal profiles of entrepreneurs, artists, designers and creators. We had featured products before, but this time we wanted to talk about the people behind those creations.

And in that series we met Riddhima and Saloni, two very Young , very Promising entrepreneurs, and the force behind Risa Bags.

We shot some of their bags, in the old fashioned product shoot style..



And the shots came out well.. 

but could we get Ridhima to model for our shoot? Yes!!
And this is what we got.

In the second pic, that`s Riddhima telling me how she would want the bag`s straps to be like for the shot.
And here is Risa`s full story.

Thanks Tavishi, Rashma, Musskan, Riddhima and Saloni for the helping hands.