The size of this 55 gallon drum could not be easily ascertained by the viewer without the hand truck prop and the arms in the photo (that's me, Joe), especially when this industrial products client manufactures concentrated desalination products in similar containers of different sizes. We suggested to our client that this particular image not be clipped, as others in the catalogue were; the soft shadows help ground and add realism to the image.
We normally photograph a large number of items in the same session for this client. This helps keep the investment down, and helps with uniformity of the images. We normally start with the largest or smallest of the images, and work our way down or up in sizes, this way we don't have to change the set and adjust the lighting less often.
Location: Barnet Studio, Costa Mesa, California.