A Beginners Guide To Production For Product Photography

This article is a beginners guide to production for product photography shoots and things to consider during client projects. 

After reading the beginners guide to pre production of a product photography shoot, you’ll be able to start creating your own checklist to start producing deliverables for your clients.

The production aspect requires no real introduction - this is where we as creatives thrive and keeps us coming back again and again. Here are some key points to remember during production:

• Set up your studio and relevant equipment.

Seems like a no brainer right?  Wrong.  You’d be amazed at the things you may forget when you’re first starting out.  Have you charged your camera battery?  Do you have an extra battery for your camera?  Do you have a couple of memory cards in case the one you’re using decides to fail unexplainably?  Do you have your studio light and is it working?  Or, if you’re using natural light only, have you taken into account the weather forecast?  Do you have all of your props, backgrounds and products all laid out ready to go?

• Compose your shot

This is where I spend a significant amount of time.  Composition is incredibly important because it can make or break an image, and therefore will make or break your client deliverables.  I studied interior design and have been doing photography long enough to be able to put an image together without too much trouble.  But even I have my days where I’ll be shooting with something I haven’t shot before and it takes some experimentation to get the composition looking the way it needs to.  When that happens – and it will happen – take a breather, walk away, and come back to your creative brief.  You want the eye to move around the image seamlessly, and you want everything within the image to communicate and make sense to your client, and by extension their customers.

• Capture your shot & do your basic edits

Are you shooting manual or aperture priority?  Are you capturing in portrait orientation or landscape orientation?  Does the image need to be brighter or more moody?  This is where my tether cord comes in handy – in fact it’s one of my favourite pieces of equipment I have.  It allows the image I capture to show up on my laptop in real time so I can see what it’s looking like, and it allows me to adjust my camera settings, and do my basic edits in Adobe Lightroom all in the one go.

• Cross check your shot list to ensure you’ve captured everything that the client is expecting you to deliver

This is so important. The creative brief doubles as my shot list and that is the document I work through to ensure that I’ve captured all of the shots that the client requires.

This beginners guide to production of a product photography shoot is in no way a definitive list, but it’s a starting point for you to research and build your own production checklist that suits your photography practice. Be sure to research and do your due diligence on what you’ll need to create a seamless service for your client, because at the end of the day, that is what will bring the client back to you, and that is what will give your brand a good reputation.

If you’re feeling confident in your production and you’re ready to learn more tips around post-production, you can find the post-production article here.

If you would like to know more about my photography, then head on over to the About page to learn more about the origins of my love for photography. Alternatively, you can follow me on Pinterest or  Instagram for more behind the scenes.  You can find examples of my product photography work here, or, if you’re a product based business and would like to enquire about how we could work together, you can contact me via the services page..

Until next time,

- Deb