I want to take a moment to highlight some product photos that I am really proud of. Every time I work for this client a really love the results, it comes down to a great client that allows us a lot of freedom and the creative team, in this case myself and Leslie Eugene from Pretty Haute Marketing who provides direction for the campaign and arrives at the studio with tons of props and ideas on how to style stand-out images.
These product images are just a taste of what we have shot for The Fragrance Bar and have all been made in the last few years for social media marketing. Our task was to create impactful, sharable, likable images that highlight the product and grow awareness of the brand. We like to use different aspects of the products as inspiration, we may want to emphasize freshness or might focus on a feeling like clean or crisp. Sometimes we are guided by particular ingredients of the scents or we might just be inspired by the design of the bottle and the way it looks in different lighting.
My studio is filled with my collection of props, textiles, household goods, paper, wood, hand painted backgrounds, tabletops, blocks and anything else I think might help tell a story and grab someones attention in the sea of competing images on social media. We start with an idea of what we want each shot to accomplish and then start “building” our set. As we put the elements together, it doesn’t always work exactly as planned, so we will adjust the camera, lighting or props until it works. Often this will take us in really different directions, where we could never have gotten without being challenged by some aspect of the composition. It can be a struggle to make a picture “sing” and it is important to keep working until something interesting develops.
After I shoot and process the photos many of the images go on to a designer, where text or motion are added, so sometimes we will shoot with this in mind. We will leave blank space or use blur selectively in the photographic process to allow room for the graphic designers work. Cropping and using additional design elements can be a great way to stretch your photographic budget because you can use the images more than once. An image might be used on its own without a graphic and then be used a year later with a mothers day promotion.
I really have a lot of fun going back and looking at my work and seeing how my personal growth in photography is a process of evolution. Little by little I figure out techniques and develop my eye just enough to surprise myself and stay fascinated by creating images.