Good-looking brands and the law

Here I was with some pretty product pictures without being able to publish them.

Article pubilshed on 2019/08/10
This post is assigned to the categories: Black and white, Favorites, Macrophotographs, Product and item photos

There are a few pictures I’ve wanted to publish for ages, if not for decades. These macros are from my early days, in which I photographed everything that couldn’t escape fast enough.
When I was really fascinated at the time, nature pictures were not the only thing I took. I had also ventured into product photography, even though I wasn’t aware of it. So there I stood with my product pictures which I couldn’t publish.
Copyright law, trademark rights and legitimate trademark use, artistic freedom. How can one see through that? How do you know what to upload and what not to upload?
That’s an important question.
Meanwhile a lot of time has passed. There was a lot of water running down the river and I still don’t have a complete understanding. However, one thing became clear to me:
With explicit permission, everything’s fine.
Just ask for an approval, best before the first picture is taken.

Let’s talk about all those great brands out there:
From an aesthetic point of view, there are many logos that are beautifully designed and nice to look at. With a softbox and a simple setup, macro photos of the special kind can be taken.
Above there was already a link to the category of product photography. Now follows a link to an article, which has dealt with studio photography.
The description can be applied to small motifs as well. For situations like that so-called light boxes are also suitable: A small mobile studio with built-in lights. But they’re not a must-have.

Well, what do you think I was photographing here? A Marshall speaker, of course. I personally like the brand and product design. Besides, there happened to be one standing around.
Perfect for a beginner with too much commitment.
After the first session, I noticed that the focus was pretty nice to look at, but it was not running along the logo lettering. That was not the end of the world, but it was obvious. I was told to rotate the motif so that I could photograph in the horizontal direction of its text.
So I did a second session, turned the speaker and somewhat played with the lights.

In a nutshell: In terms of macros it doesn’t always have to be flowers or insects. If you want to publish protected trademarks and you are not sure, ask for a permission.