Product photography always starts with the customer. What you need drives everything I do, from the setup to the props to how I frame the shot. Here's a recent project that showed me just how much that matters.
How this project started
Someone I know from the area who runs a bird feeding business sent me a message: "Hey Guido, do you do products?" Absolutely, I do.
Soon after, I got an email from a company called Nature Anywhere. They operate out of Kentucky, but their warehouse is right here in Montgomery, in Orange County. They wanted a quote on photos of gift boxes for two bird feeders they're selling for the holidays, one with a camera and one without.
We went back and forth on the quote, and my contact explained what he wanted. Then they sent me the wrong product, which I photographed. Then they sent the right one, which I picked up at their Montgomery warehouse and brought back to my studio in Beacon to photograph.
Helping a product stand up and look proud
These were not easy to compose. The bird feed bags were made of a soft material, so they didn't stand up like a box. They kept falling over, and they were all crinkly, so I had to get creative to support the package for the photos.
As part of my intake questions, I asked him to send me sample photos of other product photography he liked and might want to follow. He explained that this was the wow effect he wanted.
So I bought some props to match. When I put them in the shot, he politely said, "No, we don't want the vase or the candle or the flowers, because people will think they come with the product." I understood and reshot without them.
Amazon needs squares
The last change was that every image needed to be square, one by one, so they'd have room to crop for Amazon.
I didn't want to tear down the whole setup and recompose everything again. So, as I've done in the past, I used my creativity along with a dusting of AI to get the arrangement just right for that particular shot.
And it worked. It's the image I took, just rearranged.
I've written before about using AI carefully on a product shoot. The rule here is the same. The space around the product can change. The product never does.
Finding your specs for Amazon, Shopify, and more
The more specific you are about what you need, the better your photos will be.
Tell me it's for Amazon. Tell me it's for Shopify or Walmart. Each one has its own sizes and crops, and knowing that up front changes how I set up every shot. If you don't know the specs, and I'm not sure either, don't worry. I'll look them up and circle back.
Another tip I give my clients is to also order a wider shot, one that can be cropped later for other promotions, products, or ads. While we're already set up for the shoot, you might as well get extra images you can use down the road.
Maybe it's your first time doing this. That's fine. I was a little wobbly on this one too. We figure it out together.
How it turned out
In the end, I made something I'm proud of. When I sent over the final photos, they told me they're great. They're headed for Nature Anywhere's Amazon store and the other platforms where they sell their bird feeders.
If you have a product that needs photographing, get in touch and tell me what you need. And tell me where the photos are going.
