Product Shoots
How do you approach a product shoot?
Taking photographs for different brands is one of my main sources of income throughout the year. These shoots come in all sorts of shapes, sizes, deliverables and varieties but I wanted to break down a couple of the main things that I think about going into and during each shoot. Most of my shoots are actual live in the field and/or doing an activity, not staged shoots where we go out specifically for that product. To me, this makes it much easier to capture authentic, in the moment shots without worrying about things looking too cheesy. This is more user and client preference, but I am a firm believer that if someone wants you to shoot that content then they want your way.
If I am not given specifics on what the photographs are intended to look like, I focus on telling a story. What kind of cool adventure, place and crew would a consumer want to identify themselves with? What highlights the character of the company, what showcases the products and what puts the audience in that story?
This story gives you the keys to the kingdom for what shots you need to capture along the way. Each activity during the story is an opportunity to capture an image, a detail and a moment for someone to relate to. This as well as opportunities for the client to be able to showcase multiple parts of their products.
Without the story, it is a just a picture of a cooler. With the story, it is a picture of a lifestyle that a cooler is a part of.
Inside of that story, I like to focus on parts of products that I find important in my own use cases. I like to accentuate zippers, handles, capacity and durability. I want to tell how much I like the product through an image, not just through some graphics flashed across the screen. I also like to highlight the logos in as many ways as possible, knowing that the uses for those photos can be endless. Varying wide, medium and tight shots throughout the gallery of all of the above always gives your client the most bang for their buck as well.
Always remember the goal for the images, utilize negative space, framing at all times and keep telling that story.
