Dan's Long-Awaited Photo Tutorial-ish Thing

OK. Here's how I do it. At the moment, anyway. I confidently expect many readers to tell me better ways to do many of the things I talk about below, whereupon I'll both incorporate the better methods into my workflow, and update this page so I can pretend I knew them all along.

I wouldn't, as you may have guessed, call myself an expert photographer. I take a lot of pictures, though, and I'm halfway competent at making good product shots (which is to say, I've made some very nice looking product shots if I do say so myself, but I've probably taken far too long to make 'em).

You do not need a professional photo studio to take good pictures of small-ish objects - computer hardware, gadgets, your Transformers collection, whatever. You do not even need an elaborate amateur photo studio, with light stands and flash reflector umbrellas and backing paper roll dispensers and other stuff that'll take over whatever room you set it up in.

You also don't need a fancy-pants digital camera. I've got one, but if you only need Web-resolution output, there are now lots and lots of relatively cheap digicams, new and second hand, that'll do just fine.