I’m a fan of well organised databases of information; having a Flickr standard account was never an option for me, as having a pro account was the only way I could have an infinite number of sets of photos. In my sad geeky nature, I have created an individual set for each item of photography equipment I use. But what to use as the thumbnail shot for such a set? Well a photo of the actual item itself seemed the most logical option to me, so I set about taking photos of all of my equipment.

Now without putting in too much effort I wanted to give these photos are more professional edge; just shoving the photo under a lamp on my desk was hardly going to give the photos any merit in their own right. As such I came up with shooting them as seen in the picture above. Here are some steps to follow:

1. Find an area (such as a window sill) that gets lots of good light and has a vertical and horizontal surface so that you can fill the frame with just these two surfaces.
2. Sellotape up a few pieces of plain white paper to the background surfaces.
3. Shoot some photos with some form of close focusing lens when the light is good.
4. Overexpose and set a high contrast to make the lens look great whilst blowing out any detail in the paper.
5. Feel satisfied with the result: