Pretty sure you’ve wondered as to why product photography shot by professional photographers seems to always result in superior pictures than the photographs one shoots themselves? There are three crucial techniques a professional photographer relies on for producing imagery that gives products the exceptionally desirable look and appeal. If you stick to these techniques and methods you will create product images that pop!  

Create a Mood for Buying

Be sure to think twice before you decide on slapping your product down in front of a piece of white poster board! Let’s face it… anyone can do that. It’s essential to create a mood if you want undeniably professional looking product photography. Crafting a setting with backgrounds, staging, and lighting, does far more than just ‘document’ the fact that you have a product, it subsequently has the customer yearning for the wonderful mood your product will afford them.

Start by experimenting with producing various moods with your photographs. For instance, if you sell blueberry pies, it doesn’t do much in the way of creating the desire for blueberry pie by simply photographing it in front of a plain white background. Rather, opt for an environment where there’s warm natural light coming in from the windowsill with the pie on a country styled table.

You can position a homemade potholder adjacent the pie – Strive to having the customer believing that it’s so hot they can almost smell the blueberries rising from the page. This sort of product photography makes the customer want to satisfy the desire generated by your photograph by buying your product.

Having the Right Equipment

The necessity of professional photography equipment can simply not be ignored. Professional product photographers make use of an arsenal of equipment to successfully capture images that virtually jump off the page.  

Such equipment includes:

  • Special soft boxes or ‘lighting boxes’
  • Reflectors Surfaces to give products a dramatic look
  • Background papers
  • Macro lenses for close up work
  • Powerful strobe lights to achieve more depth of field

Lighting is the name of the game

Lighting is considerably the most pivotal element of all the techniques and equipment utilised by professional product photographers. At the end of the proverbial day, lighting can make or break your product photography. Make your product tempting to your customers by setting up your lights so that they highlight important parts of the product. An example could be how reflections can enhance the ‘sparkly’ quality of a product, especially when photographing something like jewelry. The correct and suitable lighting can make a flat product look dimensional in product photography.

On a cloudy day consider shooting outdoors in natural light if you don’t have the necessary photographic lighting. If lighting is available, set up a main light that focuses directly on your product and a second “fill” light to remove the shadow.

If you keep and maintain these three tips in mind when you’re shooting photographs of your products, you’ll be pleased to find that your product images will transform from those that simply ‘document’ the fact that you have a product, to those that produce a strong desire for that product in the sight and mind of the potential buyer.