Plantronics RIG Gaming Headsets - Product Launch Photography

Plantronics (NYSE: PLT) was founded in the early 1960s by a couple of entrepreneurial airline pilots that saw the need to replace pilot’s use of handheld microphones for communications at the time with small lightweight headsets. Working their way beyond airplane cockpits, mid-60s saw the FAA choose Plantronics as the sole supplier of headsets for air traffic controllers. Even further beyond—Plantronics headsets were also adopted by NASA for the Mercury-Atlas and Apollo missions. We have all heard Neil Armstrong deliver the famous words when he stepped onto the moon for the first time through a Plantronics headset.

Given the history it’s only fitting that the brand seeks to dominate the virtual worlds of gaming. Particularly for eSports, competitive gaming, accurate audio is mission-critical, and success is measured in millisecond moments. Enter Plantronics RIG Gaming Headsets.

Plantronics wanted to produce a collection of images that showed a series of new gaming headset offerings for Xbox, PlayStation and PC platforms in use. Marek was chosen to create the images at a high resolution that would enable not only large-format print usage but also extreme cropping for maximum utilization across various media channels.

“In order for the client to be able to crop into one of these product-in-use lifestyle shots and be able to see clean and detailed brand insignias and fine product design elements it was essential that I light the entire set with strobe lighting for maximum image acuity. Incorporating natural light would have been fine for pure lifestyle photography but these images needed to allow for being cropped in tight to also work as product shots if needed.”

“Since I was replacing natural daylight with my own lighting I wanted to try and keep it as natural looking as possible while maintaining the need for keeping everything well-lit from a product photography standpoint. A worthwhile trade-off of the daylight overpowering lighting was that any images displayed in electronic screens were underexposed and any light effects built into the products had to be addressed in post-production.”

The Managing Director for Plantronics' Asia-Pacific region out of Australia reviewed the selections and said, "these are the best lifestyle photos that the company has ever seen for gaming!”

Mission accomplished!