iPhone 14 Pro Max

Intent

Apple product shots are deceptively simple — they look like nothing's happening, but that nothingness is the whole point. The iPhone needed to feel like it was floating in a perfectly neutral space where only the device matters. No shadows pulling attention, no reflections that distract, but also not flat or dead. There's a specific Apple luminosity that's hard to articulate but immediately recognizable.

Challenge

The tolerances are incredibly tight. A reflection that's 2% too bright, a gradient that falls off slightly wrong — these things get flagged. Apple's brand team has trained eyes that catch micro-imperfections. And the Dynamic Island introduction meant new surface geometry that hadn't been lit before in their visual language.

Approach

I treated the lighting like product photography, not VFX. Soft, large area lights positioned to reveal form without creating hard edges. The trick with glass and metal together is controlling where each material picks up the environment — you want the aluminum to feel solid while the glass feels deep. Lots of subtle gradients that guide the eye.

Reference

Apple's own retail store environments — the way those tables are lit from above to make every product feel like it's on a pedestal. Also the work of photographer Peter Belanger, who shoots most of Apple's product imagery.