Does Your Product Photography Stand Out From the Crowd?

Today I have a real treat for you - a guest post from Australian maker and writer Julie Gibbons who blogs over at Tractorgirl about art, craft and design. If you haven't visited Julie before, you really should take a look! Her blog features so many wonderful designers - it's a constant source of inspiration for me. But first, check out the tips Julie has for you below when it comes to online marketing and photographing your work for artists. I know I'll be taking some advice from her..... enjoy!

Do you have a great product? Do you want to sell it in the online marketplace (which is absolutely massive and growing every day!)? You need a great product image. Shall I say it again? Competition is fierce.

You need to stand out from the crowd.

As a blogwriter focusing on contemporary craft, I regularly come across some lovely craft that has been photographed poorly – out of focus, too dark, ugly backgrounds, enormous watermarks. And it makes me really sad! But I don’t have time to ask them to send me a better pic; I simply move onto something else.

And likewise, I’ve seen some very ordinary, everyday products that have been superbly photographed. Like this one from Prunella Soaps. How many soap shops do you know of on Etsy? Heaps, I bet. But look at this soap – it’s no oil painting, that’s for sure! But Prunella Soaps uses a couple of simple and quirky props on a plain white background to add whimsy and intrigue. (You should check out the rest of her photos too,  they’re wonderful.)

But you don’t have to have lots of props or be an amazing photographer to get a good photo. A simple, clear shot on a white background can also show your product off to its best advantage. There are some really basic, very achievable things to do to get a good image.

Here we go...

Camera
I use a very basic digital camera, which has macro built in so I can get good close-ups of textures. Use a tripod when and where possible - NO amount of photo editing can fix a blurry photo.

Light
Photograph your item outside, but not in direct sunlight (which can give really harsh shadows). Low light photography often results in graininess in your image. You can adjust it a bit in your photo-editing program, but it’s far from ideal.

Background
As a general rule of thumb for product shots, the best backgrounds are plain. White is always good (unless you’re photographing something that’s jet-black – in which case, I would recommend a mid-grey background). The easiest thing to do is to put your piece on a sheet of plain white cardboard (less chance of it becoming creased). If your piece is small, you can make your own kind of “infinity ground” (cyclorama) – a gently curved background, good for covering space. You simply need a piece of white cardboard, clip the top edge onto a heavy book, and let the remainder lay on the bench top, like I did when photographing my
Poppy Seed Orange Cake. (The recipe is here – it is delish!) Then you just crop your image to to suit.

Composition
Composition of your image is important. You can use props if you like, but please don’t go overboard! Unless you are totally sure about how your image is going to turn out, simple is the very best policy. A beautiful object displayed simply is beautiful.

Edward and Lilly Pendant

Watermarks
I completely understand that in this age of image-sharing (oh yar, don’t talk to me about my Pinterest addiction) that there is an element of the online community that like to ‘pinch’ ideas and images, or at the very least, share them profusely – and hence, many makers, especially photographers, wish to put it out there that the image belongs to them.

And fair enough. But PLEASE keep in mind that be blazing your name across the middle of
the image in huge letters is a big turnoff! If you wish to use a watermark, that’s fine – but keep
it smallish and in a corner, so that potential buyers can clearly see the work, your image (and
therefore your exposure – this is advertising, folks!) will be shared more and you will be much
more likely to be picked up by blogs.

Size
If you haven’t realised by now, one of the great ways to increase your audience (and your list of potential buyers) is to get people to share your image on social media – Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook and a whole bunch more. Speaking as a blogger, if an image is smaller than around 450 pixels wide, I won’t use it.

Editing
In my experience, most images require editing of some description. As long as your image is not blurry, you can alter brightness and contrast (I use this ALL the time on mine!) as well as cropping to get a better a composition. You can also change the colour balance and use the rubber stamp tool to get rid of minor blemishes (such as that bit of fluff you didn’t notice when you were shooting!). I use Photoshop6 (which is a VERY old version, but it still does everything I want), but if you don’t have Photoshop, there are lots of free web-based photo-editing programs out there, such as Photoscape, Fotoflexer or PicMonkey.

Manners
OK. If you haven’t got it by now, I’ll say it again. It’s an online world these days and images WILL be shared. If you don’t want your images shared, don’t put them up there! If everyone uses their manners online, there would be no problems with such sharing.

It comes back to the old Golden Rule – treat others how you would like to be treated yourself.
So, if you pin/borrow/share an image, at the very least, you should provide a link back to the
source where you found it. Or, even nicer is to ask permission from the artist before you share
their work (something I do for all my feature artists, as I often share up to 8 of their images).

Thanks so much for sharing with us all Julie! Lots of words of wisdom in there to be sure - I don't know about the rest of you but I feel like rephotographing everything in my Etsy store right now!!

Now I have some exciting things planned for this week, including a self-guided two day writing retreat in a tipi! I am very excited about this... will be sure to tell you all about it later in the week - for now though, I'm off to the couch and a big pot of lemon honey tea in the hopes I can clear up my head cold before tipi time.... have a great week everyone!

Jen x