A lightbox

Aha, a lightbulb went on when I remembered reading of a doll artist who had made a little forest scene in a cardboard box for photographing her little dolls.

A quick google for lightbox or homemade lightbox brings up lots of helpful info on this topic and you can control the lighting, detail, background.

This is particularly good for small items to photograph.

I have a huge assortment of cardboard boxes to choose from and we will have
to make a depot run, but I think we might get going on this to take some better not so polaroidish photos.

So for those of us wondering about all the lush detailed photos - this is one of the best tools photographers use.

Back to the drawing board or cardboard in this case!