Clients often ask us to take the shadows out. We usually ask to try one frame with them left in first. Nine times in ten, the shadow stays.
Shadows give weight
A product with no shadow floats. Your eye cannot tell whether it is sitting on the table or hovering above it, and a floating product looks light and cheap. A soft contact shadow right under the base is the simplest way to make something look solid.
Glass throws light, not just shade
Clear glass does something better. Its shadow is full of light, bent and focused by the curves of the glass. Hard sun or a bare head brings this out, and soft light hides it. When we shoot glass we often light for the shadow first and the bottle second.
Hard light needs a plan
Hard shadows are honest about every angle, so the set has to be clean. Check the edge of the table, the corners of the paper and anything stray that might throw a shape into the frame. Then decide which way the shadow should fall so it leads the eye back to the label.
When we do remove them
Some marketplaces require a pure white background with no shadow. We still shoot with the shadow and remove it in retouching for those files only. The client keeps both versions, and the better one stays on their own site.
Mateo LindPhotographer and founder of LeanIn
