Do you use professional photographers for your product shots?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Diana Hunter on November 5, 2010 at 20:49

I would love to be able to afford professional photography but unfortunately like many craft people I have to rely on my digital camera. As a result my photos don't do my work any credit at all. I certainly feel that if I could take a half decent picture then it makes all the difference to the way my website looks.
As for tips...if anyone has any then it would be much appreciated.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Fiona Main on November 10, 2010 at 12:56

I can't afford a professional either I'm afraid, but my husband is a very keen amateur and has a reasonable digital SLR. I guess the tips would probably depend on what you were trying to photograph.
As my jewellery is generally made from very bright buttons I find a plain white background works best and this is probably true for most things if you just want a clear picture of the product. Lighting is also important and when my husband was taking the shots of my jewellery he tried to light it directly from above so that there were very few shadows cast. Basically my set-up is a bit of white board on the floor or perched on a chair with the camera positioned directly above either hand-held or on a tripod and take the pictures using flash.
A bit of experience with Photoshop or a similar graphics package would probably also be beneficial and there are some quite good free ones out there now if you do a bit of Googling. This helps you to ramp up the contrast, brightness and saturation as the camera with flash can tend to wash things out a bit. It also helps to tidy up any stray shadows or specks that might have crept in and saves you re-doing all your photography.
Hope this helps somebody :o)
Fiona x
p.s. If you want to see my husbands efforts www.buttonbling.co.uk

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Stuart Russell on December 1, 2010 at 10:44

Thanks for that Fiona, some great advice!

I always found that getting the lighting right was the biggest issue for me. I tried a variety of setups using cardboard boxes and white sheets to diffuse the light! You can get cheap pop up lighting boxes and lighting sets on Ebay which are not too bad.

Anyone else got any tips? I have seen some lovely photography in the gallery section, would be great to hear how it was achieved!

Stuart

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Eleanor Barron on December 9, 2010 at 17:07

I have always photographed my work myself as I Have more control over how I want the image to look.. I would love to hire a proffessional but lack of funds and time prevent me. For commissioned pieces sometimes I only have time to take a quick picture myself before the item is collected or posted to the customer.

I always use natural daylight.. near a window and experiment with different backgrounds to see what works. This works fine for web based promotion but for printed brochures or applications to things like Origin it would be worth hiring a proffessional, with a track record in Jewellery if that is what you make, as a better picture might help more sales or achieve more promotion in print.

Lighting is imporatant and I am thinking about setting up an area to use with the corect daylight bulbs to get rid of shadows. One jeweller told me to try photographing the pieces ontop of a lightbox but I haven't tried it yet !

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Julia Douglas on February 14, 2011 at 16:26

When I opened my online shop, which sells home accessories made by different makers, I had to think of a way to photograph stock quickly & professionally. I also wanted images to be uniform throughout the site. I opted for a grey background and invested in two soft box lights (I already had a good digital camera). I keep this set up all the time now as I use it constantly and am now thinking I could offer simple studio shots to other makers. Do you think this is something people might like? It would obviously have to be affordable for them & transporting the works would also have to be considered. If you'd like to see my images, my outlet is at baffie.co.uk. Oh yes, I use adobe lightroom to process the images. It's brilliant software for this. Cheers Julia 


Stuart Russell said:

Thanks for that Fiona, some great advice! I always found that getting the lighting right was the biggest issue for me. I tried a variety of setups using cardboard boxes and white sheets to diffuse the light! You can get cheap pop up lighting boxes and lighting sets on Ebay which are not too bad.

Anyone else got any tips? I have seen some lovely photography in the gallery section, would be great to hear how it was achieved!

Stuart

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Alison Moore on September 14, 2011 at 18:48

Hi all

 

I still haven't got my head around photographing my jewellery in a light box.  I cant seem to achieve the right amount of light.  Instead, I now take all of my pictures outside, on an overcast day.  It seems to work for me!

 

Will upload some pictures to the gallery for you to look at.

Ally

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Alison Anderson on September 15, 2011 at 16:55

Hi Everyone,

 

If anyone has taken a look at my website, it's pretty clear that I have just taken the photos myself!  Mostly I have just photographed the items on the carpet, which I know is far from ideal. Recently, however,  I made some felted scarves and managed to persuade my daughters to model them for me. Being a bit camera shy they were reluctant to do it, but I am very pleased with the results... it gives a bit of life to the photos. I think with my bags (if I can't persuade the girls to pose with them) I ought to try maybe taking photos outside, hanging from trees etc? Not sure really, but I'm sure I'm going to pick up lots of tips from this discussion thread. Thanks for starting it Stuart...  

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Lynn Smith on September 24, 2011 at 9:46

i use a basic bridge camera, some props and a light tent 

• ▶ Reply

▶ Reply to Discussion