Overcoming Challenges with Capturing Footwear Products in Photography

In photography we are frequently trying to capture a subject - the human condition, emotion, eyes. Even if products are the impetus for the project, we are working to show how those products make people feel. Working with shoes & feet, you suddenly have a more difficult time capturing your subject's eyes.

Coming from the perspective of feet they naturally far away from a subjects eyes. Plus they are on the ground where the photographer isn’t. This was a huge adjustment from me coming where I was so used to making portraits of people. Working with footwear products, I’ve noticed there are some unique remedies to this so wanted to walk through a few of those thoughts/points below:

Pose models on the ground.

Here Anna is posed on the ground slightly inverted so I could get her plane of focus right. The shoes and the face look really nice together. She is a size 7 shoe.

Use poses on the ground.

I have models frequently sitting or squatting. When you have models doing that, you can more often bring the shoes and the face into that plane of focus. You have to work with your angles a little bit, but it does allow you to bring those shoes into focus with the eyes and the face.

Choose talent that isn’t tall.

It's a little bit easier to bring shoes closer to their face when you have a model that isn’t super tall. Models that are tall and lanky probably just aren't going to be a good fit for footwear. The shoes are going to not look quite as snug. The proportions of the shoes start to get a little out of whack as you use a larger shoe. Have you ever seen a shoe on the rack and thought oh I like that and then it comes in your size and you suddenly don’t like it anymore? That happens to me (I’m a size 12 men). So whether it's female or male, we're looking for subjects that are a little bit more compact, and in my case, a little bit more muscular, just due to the nature of a fit or a workout shoot.

Choose locations with elevation changes.

Having opportunities to drop below your subject is a huge help when photographing shoes. Being able to elevate your subjects feet so you don’t have to be smushed on the ground is much easier.

Don’t always worry about focus.

Shots that obviously don't require focus, like blur shots, shots that show movement. Also, I frequently roll with focusing on the shoes and just being okay with a little blur of the face and upper body. It’s a balance between slowing down a photoshoot and being meticulous about focus. I also think it depends on the client. Some clients want the focus (actually and figuratively) to be on the product you’re shooting.

Don’t always worry about focus.

Imari is posed here in a blurry, artistic look.

Use multiple layers.

One of the reasons I like to do quite a few takes on a certain shot is it gives me options for layering. I might have a shot where the runner/athlete has a heel strike or I missed a little bit of focus on the shoe. Having other options allows me to bring a piece of another image into the core image to combine them.

Use Layers

Regan was doing this interesting turn around motion and I missed the focus on the shoe in the image where I liked her legs more. I combined the shoe in focus with the leg in the flexed state that I wanted to get this composite image. This is the final composite image.

This was the base image I liked but the shoe was a little soft focus. You might be able to tell it’s a little soft.

In this image, the shoe was in focus so I moved it into the main image. It took a little adjustment but I was able to make it work. I also kept the skirt movement from this image.

Aggressively narrow your aperture. Think about centering focuse plane.

I like to narrow my aperture to where an aggressive amount of the image is in focus. This becomes difficult with movement as we start to rely on a higher ISO and get more noise as a result. Additionally to grab more focus I'll move the focus plane to the center of the subject. So I'll focus on, say, their torso. And that way, you're moving that focus plane to the center of the subject rather than focusing on their face. Your areas of emphasis are now more comfortably within your plane of focus.

Take time to check your images.

When I’m in the field shooting footwear, I definitely take time to check my focus. And this is probably true for many athlete or movement focused shoots. You may think you have the shot and then you begin post process and you don’t - has happened to me many times unfortunately.

I hope this helps one person!