Tip: Deodorant Spray Can Tone Down Reflections in Product Photos

Here’s a helpful 4-minute video in which photographer Phillip McCordall shares a few tips and tricks for dealing with reflections in still life photography.

Perhaps you’re stuck lighting your subject and can’t get rid of big white reflections. Well, simply spraying a cheap deodorant onto the surface will dull down the reflection.

Before and after comparison of spraying deodorant onto a reflective surface.

The more expensive varieties won’t have the same effect as they tend to be transparent, or “invisible,” and don’t leave the necessary residue needed for this trick.

Or maybe you want to light all sides of the bottle with a nice rim light, but can’t get it to work perfectly on one side? Stick some white tape down one side, and then just twist the bottle so it’s just out of view.

You can position it exactly so that the tape looks just like some nice edge-lighting, with as fat or thin a strip as you like.

Make sure to watch the rest of the video above for a full explanation and some extra tricks from McCordall. You can also find more of his videos by visiting and subscribing to his YouTube channel.


Image credits: Video and still frames by Phillip McCordall

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