Still life and product photography isn't as tricky as you think. Whether you need to photograph something for a portfolio or to sell it on eBay, you can make beautiful photographs with even the most basic setup.

For this example, I photographed four pieces of jewelry using nothing special. Here's how I did it, step by step.

Lighting

Since this is the basic approach I'm going to make these photos without any fancy lighting. In fact, everything in this tip could be done with any normal camera equipment, including any point and shoot digital camera with macro mode (which most models now include).

Lighting is key. Where can we find soft, available light? That's right: In the shade. I'm heading out to the porch on a Saturday afternoon, where I've got plenty of that wonderful shade.

Depth of Field

I took this first image (above) to demonstrate a simple principle of product photography: depth of field. You need to have your products in focus, as detail is key. Notice how in the photo above, the focus is crisp on the top right piece, but the bottom pieces are too blurry to use. This can be easily corrected by shifting your camera angle.

In the photo below, I've simply moved the camera angle so I'm looking straight down on the jewelry. This way, they are all the same distance from the camera. This straight-on plane of focus keeps them all crystal clear.

Background

You need to have a background that doesn't conflict with the item. Look at the photo above. We've corrected the depth of field, but the background is awfully distracting. The jewelry gets lost in the lines and curves of the background.

Since we're doing this shoot on the cheap, I've snuck into my son's room and stolen a sheet of blank white paper. Don't tell him or I'll be in trouble! Look at the photo below to see the improvement a sheet of white paper makes on the photo.

White makes for a nice, simple background color. Additionally, using a white sheet of paper is going to help my camera get a perfect white balance. These were all shot with the camera's auto white balance setting.

Go the next tip to see the rest of the shoot...