Choosing the Right Product Photographer for Your Brand

Choosing a photographer for your brand is more like choosing a tattoo artist than choosing a car insurance provider. Insuring a car can be summed up in 12 words: fully comp - sort low to high - pick the first one - job done.

Typically you would want to spend a bit more time on picking a tattooist. It wouldn’t be the best idea for example to choose an artist that specialises in stick and poke tattoo’s to carry out that photo realistic family portrait on your back.

Similarly, that friend of a friend that takes amazing landscapes and family portraits might not be right for launching the brand for that product that you’ve already invested so much of your money and time into.

Being a photographer isn’t an all encompassing title and one size really doesn’t fit all here, we have specialisation for a reason. 

Unfortunately that specialisation does come at a price. When you work with professionals in a chosen field you are paying for that studios collective knowledge and experience. The increase in rate you can expect when hiring a premium photography service should come with it a premium experience. Working with a high end photographer you should find that all of sudden your emails are responded to, clear guidelines are set, the right questions are being asked. Here comes the real cost saving with experienced photographers. You won’t have to do your shoot all over again because we get it right first time. Experts in their field have already made and learnt from the typical mistakes that inevitably all photographers make when learning their craft. 

When choosing the right photographer for your campaign, what you need to know should boil down to the following traits:

• A proven track record - can this photography studio execute your brands ideas from a technical standpoint? Take a look at the quality of their work, does it match that of the reference images you plan to give them?

• Creativity and style - Does the photography in their portfolio convey a similar message to your brand? If you want your brand to feel contemporary, does the studio you are at choosing look current and top of the latest trends and photographic techniques?

• Professionalism and reliability -Did they reply to your emails in a timely manner? Are they asking you the right questions? 

• Attention to detail - What does their site look like? Did you notice that the copyright symbol on their website still shows 2022?! If they haven’t noticed that, how likely is it that they are going notice that your images aren’t straight or dusted correctly?

Truly interdisciplinary photographers are renaissance men and not jack of all trades. They do exist but it’s important to separate the wheat from the chaff here. As a representative for your brand, it falls on you to decipher whether the photographer you are hiring truly understands what it takes to execute your brands message and wether they can collaborate with you to bring that to message to life in your brands photography.

Building Your Brand With a Product Photographer

Handing your products to a photographer for a shoot can feel like handing over your child for a day. Before signing that pre shoot contract, as a business owner we need to think, 'can I trust that the photographer is aligned with our brands identity?'. In the right hands, a commercial photographer can be as essential to a brand as your store front and in the wrong hands, you can spend thousands on re-shoots and waste hours of your companies time.

So how do we make sure that we are on the same page? Communication. Simple isn't it, but as photographers what we need as part of that communication is consistency in message and theme. Before a shoot it's the clients role to communicate to the photographer who their business is for, what other brands are doing what they want to do and how can we do it better? What trends are you tapping into, what kind of aesthetic does your brand have, and sometimes most importantly, what brand message do you want to avoid? Do you want your brand to feel affordable and relatable or premium and unobtainable? The difference between the two can often be as simple as putting a lighting modifier on or off.

It is our jobs as photographers to interpret and make sense of the reference images your brand provides and reverse engineer how they look. What are the shadows like in the references provided? What kind of catch lights? What colours? What props need to be ordered? What kind of perspective is being used here?

Once we develop lasting relationships with brands this relationship just gets easier and easier, to the point where we feel truly invested in your brands message. In the same way that using reoccurring models builds brand familiarity, using the same photographer on every shoot means that your brands output is coherent and thematic.

This is one key advantage our retainer clients have. Committing to a set amount of shoots per month with the same person can be a weight lifted and you can wave goodbye to those lack of content fears now you know that you can rely on a set amount of assets each month.

An integral part of every one of our shoots is planning the shoot with someone that knows the product in and out. Wether this be having someone from the brand on set on the day, or by setting out guidelines with product developers, managing directors or art directors beforehand to make sure that everything is photographed as it should be. Here it's the small things that make a big difference. Say we are photographing a bottle of moisturiser, does the client want the clear plastic top on, or off? How does the product ship, how does it look best? Which way should the nozzle be facing?

Discussing all of these small details saves time in retouching, avoids any wasting time in the long run, and makes sure that your photography represents your brand and your product in the best light possible.

Here are 3 different shoots from the same brand, using the photographer (me)