I have griped on many occasions here about my struggle with my product photography. My first shop I only showed graphics of the offerings which was great because there was a nice consistency to the images, the downside in my opinion was that the client couldn’t really get a feel for the actual product. With the launch of Besotted Brand I knew I wanted to up the ante with product shots, the only problem is that my product photography skills were null. I was at a loss for a few months, but then I feel that things began to change. I wanted to give you a few tips that have helped me tremendous amounts and for those of you struggling may help you as well, which I have listed below:
1. This first tip may make you roll your eyes in the back of your head, but I am going to share it anyway–Take lot’s of photos, all the time. In other words–practice. Does that make you cringe? I apologize, but truly the more bad shots I took the more good shots came about later as a result.
2. I took a class. Now I know not everyone has a budget for a class and this was not in mine either, but I figured I would forgo eating and see where the chips fall. Bonus, I am thinner and more adept at my product photography skills. The class I took was on line by Nicole’s Classes. I am a huge fan of Nicole, she graduated from a very prestigious (and impossible to get into) photography school, she has worked with the industries top photographers and is a success in her own right working with publications such as Real Simple.
This is a great class.
3. I bought a tripod. Okay, I should state that I owned a tripod previously, or a poor excuse for a tripod, just flimsy and hard to work with. I couldn’t afford the tripod that I wanted so I invested in the best tripod I could afford. The number one difference with the new tripod is that it has a quick release, making it super easy to pull my camera off the tripod and shoot at different angles. I adore this feature.
I bought this tripod,
with this ball head.
These are only three quick tips, but I feel that they were instrumental in taking me from dark, dank and blurry shots to the shot above, which isn’t perfect but leaps & bounds better than where I was when I started. If you have any questions for me leave them in the comments and I am happy to try to answer them.
P.S. This is my new Parcel Twine Trio, I will be giving a set away next week, but if you can’t wait you can get your set here.