Isolating small objects on white

Equipment and Materials used:
Clear fishing line
Rope
White backdrop
2 Alien Bees 800
Two light stands
Shoot through umbrella
Canon 50D with 60mm 2.8

The most effective way of isolating an object on white is to get it floating in mid air--this eliminates all shadows. For this photo of a gift bag, I tied the gift bag handles with fishing line, and tied it to rope attached to two light stands.

Since white paper actually shows up as gray when you photograph it, you need at one light, (or two for larger objects), just on the backdrop itself. This will blow out the background making it a pure white. In this case, one Alien Bee 800 is aimed at the backdrop, directly behind the subject. I used the other Alien Bee to light the bag itself. I softened the light with a shoot-thru umbrella and bounced it off the ceiling. The final step was simply boosting the contrast and cloning out the string on Photoshop.

Here is the final photo on iStockphoto.