Since photographing products are a common request, I can say over my career I have photographed quite a variety. From toasters to washers and dryers to jewelry to bedspreads, I've done quite a bit. On this particular day we were photographing designer pillows. These are all hand-made from a small company in Fairfax, CA, Twig and Cricket. Our challenge was to show the texture in the product as it was in a natural surroundings of a home in Oakland, CA.

: Nothing like a great shot of my bald head.

The lighting was pretty simple. Start with a nice overcast day in the early morning so light is filtering through all the windows. I added a small strobe, a battery operated SB-800 on a wireless trigger, to hit the subject with a just a tick of fill light. This was shot with a very shallow depth of field to bring out the texture in the napkins.

Again, we used daylight from the windows and a portable flash with a slight warming gel to light up the front of the pillows.

We photographed the whole line of pillows in the same set-up so the owner could use what she wanted in different parts of the web site.

: Warm light added with portable flash.

We set up and shot several outdoor photographs early that morning. Since the light was flat, we added a portable Nikon SB-800 with a warming gel off to the right to add some texture and give it that morning glow.