For better or worse, I tend to angle the blasters across the whole frame. I guess I’m trying to get it as large as I can unless I’m trying to stage something differently.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say that this sucks - but, yes, there is room for improvement.
Good lighting improves a picture in both subtle and unsubtle ways: better colour rendering, more details, and (assuming that you’re using a modern camera which automatically adjusts shutter speed based on lighting) also a sharper image. The best and easiest lighting to use is daylight. I’ve found that having lots of lamps to bounce light around a room also helps, but lamps are just an OK supplement and poor substitute for a big window.
A clear background helps to draw attention to the blaster itself as there’s less detail to compete for visual attention - plus, an uncluttered space just looks nicer. I sometimes put blasters on the floor if there’s no other clear space available.
Composition-wise, having a blaster occupy nearly the full frame of the picture makes it feel weirdly cramped where it’s close the edges of the picture. Zooming out a little helps - but not too much. It’s IMO more important to have space in front of the muzzle than behind the stock so that the blaster feels like it’s pointing “into” that space. (For the same reason, it’s generally considered bad for a picture of a person looking sideways to clip the frame right in front of their face - but having a frame edge right behind them is OK).
Zack Freedman has a lengthy video on the subject of making project videos that people want to watch. About half of that also applies directly to project photos that people want to see and much of the rest can be adapted.
The 80/20 rule applies to pictures of nerf blasters, except in this case it’s more extreme: less than 20% of the effort that a professional photographer would put in can get you more than 80% of the results. Just taking pictures in daylight, with an uncluttered background, and with basic composition can produce very good results.
Also, if you’ll excuse a nitpick - it’s “blaster,” not “gun,” to avoid misunderstandings that can be both disruptive and dangerous.
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