Surely these photos were pieced together in segments…it would be foolish not to given the white backdrop. not only that, but a lot of the sets are identical tools only smaller, making it easy to simply scale and cascade in photoshop. Impressive either way, I suppose.

I beg to differ - it might just be me… but it seems like it would be a LOT easier to just lay it all out rather than photoshop it together well… or maybe i just haven’t watched enough ‘you suck at photoshop’ to learn the shortcut to convincing collaging…

I have to agree about it being PS, although it’s still a great composition either way.

I think compositionally it probably was NOT done in photoshop because of the slightly different angles of each tool, and slightly different angle at which the light hits each one.

And honestly, I think although it would take a lot of time to actually set up each photo, it would probably be a blast to do. Sears can hire me any day to assemble their stuff for photo shoots.

Having taken multiple commercial photo classes, I’m pretty sure this is all real.

I think I can help everyone out here, my name is Ed Laube and I work for GSP Marketing in Chicago, We are the ones that design and photograph the Sears Craftsman books, I head a team of three photographers that do the holiday and big tool book, and no photoshop is used to compose any of our shots, each is a one shot, composed on set, the 1400+ set took most of three days to set up and shoot. I have to thank Sears Craftsman for allowing us to show their tools in a way that we think is unique, and yes I do have a great job!

Trust me, I know the guy that took these pictures and this is all real.

I know the photographer who did these shots. His name is Ed Laube and he works at GSP Marketing in Chicago. I ran the studio at GSP for 10 years but before that I was tortured as a photographer buy Sears and the tool book enough times to tell you for certain this is all one photo. Worked and and reworked, these shots can take many days to assemble and then light. Several weeks can pass before approval. We used to shoot them on giant pieces of tempered glass so each and every socket face could capture a white reflection while appearing to be on a colored background. I recall after many hours of heating under the tungsten lights we used, a sheet of glass about 8X10 feet exploded from cooling too quickly. Very Scary!
BTW, Ed is a very patient man.
JFW

I wonder if after they get it all set up they sit back and say …no I don’t like that, lets try something else.

I used to work for Business Arts in the same building/same floor where John worked for GSP. I still knonw a few GSP folks. We shot Sears tools all the time… on glass…and yes, the glass would explode once in a while. Those “socket shots” were fun, but the hours were really not worth what we got for the shot. The examples above really show movement and that is what sets them apart from our stuff. Getting LIFE into hand tools is not easy. Very Nice Work!

Dave Stevens

Wow, those are some fantastic shots! Can I use the term “tool porn” here? Hi-res versions of those would sure make for some great desktop pics too!