7 Reasons to Consider Hiring a Professional Product Photographer

Rather than trusting your results to a novice or a generalist, professional product photographers bring a unique skill set to your projects. Specifically product professionals employ skills unique to other photographers. General photographers are like a swiss army knife being used for surgery when a scalpel, made for the job, yields a better result with less scaring. Using a novice would be like using a butter knife in the previous example. Might get the job done but with a lot of pain.

Professional product photographer..

1) Provides a predictable professional results.

Borosilicate mug set.

2) Uses professional equipment, lighting and software built for the task.

Simple tabletop studio using professional grade gear.

3) Will stay on task and meet expectations and deadlines.

4) Uses highly skilled post processing techniques to emphasize the good and reducing or eliminating the undesirables.

5) Provides consistency. Polished catalog, on line store or advertising require consistent lighting, color and finishing. Professionals provide a high degree of additional continuity to your product line.

Images consistent across products.

6) Use an artistic eye to bring your products to life. Years of experience bring a solid skill set to your project.

Bonsai soils and supplies banner shot.

7)  Are professional both in the beginning and throughout the entire project and beyond.

These are just a few things to consider. Other things like time, cost, portfolio, fit, and artistic view will be covered in the next post.

Working with Color

 Working with Color to Create Mood

There comes a time in a products life when simple catalog shots on a white sweep are not enough to satisfy marketing needs. In many cases, simple shots on white fail to set the lifestyle or mood that the product is designed to fulfill. In the past few months I have been running trials by adding color gels then RGB lights to the backgrounds still keeping the backgrounds without any texture, just adding color.

Color can set the products tone making something as simple as this Chinese made hip flask seem interesting and exciting. Products will still need to be shot on white for Amazon's primary listing photo, but the additional photos can take full advantage of bright and exciting colors. Ready to learn how color can make you products stand out. Contact me through my website.

Working with models in a lifestyle shoot.

Today I want to talk about a part of product photography that can be the most difficult and most rewarding style of shooting, the "lifestyle" shoot. Personally with a preference to still life artwork, this is the type of project I enjoy most. This gives me the opportunity to really get my creative juices flowing and create product "art" not just a standard catalog shot.
Creating these types of images involves more time and more money as most models and props aren't free. This Hero lifestyle shot of these sauces took almost 8 hours of studio and editing time. Starting with arranging all the props(food items, cooktop, working surface, stove, utensils, and  background) then lighting the stage before the model arrives. Followed by costume and fine tuning the stage for the models addition. Here are 2 shots from the shoot...

and a shot taken the next day using the same stage...

Here is another product lifestyle of some of the components of a gift box. No food stylist was used as the budget for this shoot was quiet modest.

and the included snuggle blanket.

If you would like to discuss having your products photographed in this or any style, contact me for a free bid.

Is it real or is it Memorex...You decide!

Just recently I was asked to duplicate a digital rendering using the actual product. Digital renderings have none of the limitations imposed by the physics of camera optics. Perspective, distortion, color shift and annoying little product defects can all be eliminated with a digital rendering. The resulting image becomes an unreal,representation of the product. The rendering displayed here uses a logo not found on the actual bottle casting.

Sometimes, as in this example of a hand soap dispenser, the consumer may not be as sensitive to the appearance of the product as say a decor object where the actual object will be on display. Manufacturers are quick to produce these "renderings" as they are relatively quick, cheap to produce from product mock-ups and show their products without defect.

Which you as a seller choose to use will depend on your clientele and products. As a note, you will never see Tiffany's use anything but actual photos in their public facing advertising, highly edited, but still the actual product offered.

Would you like more information on product photography? Visit my website at ProdPhoto.com

Building a New Vision/Website

Now that things have slowed down for the summer and before the holiday cycle, I finally have time to fix the website. Last year during the holiday crunch my old web host decided to upgrade the server os which had the net effect of destroying my Wordpress built website. My new host specializes in Wordpress but without the added fee schedule of many of the other hosts. Add-ons like templates and plug-ins are all included at one reasonable fee. Check out the progress at ProdPhoto.com the pages are in flux so things are changing on a daily basis.

On another note, I had a chance to work with some Waterford crystal for an eBay listing. A small job but fun to do. Unlike most product photos, this was a group shot of 12 pieces instead of the usual single hero shot.

Hero shot by the dozen.

I do small runs of product for many auction sites. Do you have a single item that is rare or valuable and want to maximize your selling price? Call or email me so we can discuss your options.

After Holiday Studio Special

Here's a after holiday deal - - Catalog shots on white, set-up fees half off (now $17.50) and $15 per shot (min 5). Book now studio time at this pricing is very limited.

Summer is here...meh?

The new season for #Product #Photography is in full swing and Summer is hitting Florida with what promises to be a real scorcher making outside work almost impossible. Thanks to careful lighting, special props and backgrounds I can bring the outdoors to any small product shoot.

Hero shot of a cold process coffee maker.

Strobes replicate light from open shade giving soft pleasant shadows along with a few specular reflections of the outdoor area. A color print of a garden hedge lit with a separate light and slightly over-exposed completes the outdoor effect.

Here is the same product on the same table but with different lighting and on a white sweep.

On white sweep for Amazon primary listing photo.

Have some small items that need this type of treatment? Contact me for a free bid on your project. www.prodphoto.com/contact/