Erin Rademacher, Catalog Photographer

So I get asked from time to time what I do now since I graduated.  And I always tend to give the same lame excuse or answer like, "I'm a catalog photographer" or "I shoot Snuggies".  I never fully go into detail about my job and what I do exactly.  But I suppose one can only speculate so much about a catalog photographer.  Usually bad photography and cheap looking sets are run alongside this job and many of the products my company does happen to sell are quite silly.  Ridiculous in fact.  And I only mean that in the sense that a lot of these products are so far fetched and unique, one would have to find them all situated between the pages of a catalog.  No one else would want to sell them any other way. 

The job is fun and I get to test out a lot of the stuff too.  (If it doesn't break on me)  Mostly it's the people I work with that makes it great.  So below I compiled a small bit of what I actually shoot and do during my days here at Home Trends.

 Pretty much everyday I get to shoot something new.  Sometimes I come across reshoots or outdated images that MUST be reshot or else a subscriber might think they came across an old 1989 verision of Home Trends.  And beyond that, I edit, help with layouts and prop shop.  Four months in and I still haven't found a sound routine with what I do weekly.  And really, that suites me fine.

 And when I talk of prop shopping, I usually mean going out to buying more things for the photograph we need and then store it in the ever expanding prop room.  Eventually, I think they'll have to get me a new one, room that is.  There is so much stuff everywhere!  Sometimes I get to buy food.  That's really a good thing, since I get to eat afterwards.  Today though, just paint.

 O and did I mention that my studios don't get heat?  Or maybe we do, perhaps the remnants of another part of the building?  Anyway, the most usual part of my day would mainly consist of me turning on my space heaters and/or standing/sitting by them.  Quite sad I know, feel free to send me gloves anytime!  And since I went out in the cold, cold snow to buy paint, I had to stand by my trusty space heater once again to dry my boots.  But anyway, I digress...

So let me tell you about some of those wacky products that I get to shoot.  This one here is a mosquito repellent necklace.  You simply turn on the high frequency pitch that insects and mosquitoes hate hearing and enjoy your stay outdoors, bug free.  I'm not sure of the radius that this product can yield but a fellow employee and I did turn on the necklace and could hear the "high frequency pitch".  Hmmm...perhaps the label should read, "Repels mosquitoes, dogs and some humans"?  It was a pretty annoying sound.

The next product is lye soap.  A "working man's" soap.  I suppose those that garden, work on cars or just have bad hygiene and habits would use such a heavy duty soap.  It took a while to think of a good and wholesome concept for such a plain and dull product but hey, that's why they hired me!  So going with that "Lets go to Grandma's house!" kinda theme, here's the end result. 

 Another, called Zerust, is a small eraser-sized product that will repel rust damage from any metal tools or objects from a chemical reaction within it.  It also boasts a radius of protection of 2 feet.  Oh and a side note, don't let it near any paper, or that starts to yellow as well.