Forum Moderators: LifeinAsia
I'm not sure I understand exactly what you're asking -- are you wondering how others go about taking product pictures for commerce sites?
If so, my best advice would be to go spend $20-40 at a local fabric store getting some colored backdrops that you can hang or pin or tack to a wall. At minimum, get one dark color (black is good) and one light color (white or off-white is good). Some items photo well in front of different colors (gray, for example, rarely comes out well in front of a white backdrop).
Then get a big table or some kind of flat platform that you can place the products on. Straight, head-on pix with some depth behind them are usually the best, and if you're shooting stuff on the floor, you'll have to lay down to get that effect. (Shooting down to an item on the floor eliminates any depth behind the item.)
If you have the luxury of spending a couple hundred dollars on lighting, go for it. Digital cameras today can do a nice job without any pro-level lighting, but if you have it you can really do a bangup job and set your photos apart from other sites' photos.
And lastly, go out to some of the major clothing retailers (think L.E. and E.B. as a start) and see how they show product images. You can learn a lot from what you like and don't like from the sites that sink 4-, 5-, and 6-figures into their product photography. :)
Hope this is something like what you're looking for.
So you think depth is important? If it laying on the floor I dont understand how I could get depth unless you mean standing up on the floor a few feet away from the backdrop.
What some of the 'pros' do to create depth can be as simple as folding the sleeves in a natural pose that happens to sit on top of the stomach of a sweater, for example. Not a ton of depth, but it gets away from the flat look enough.
If you have access to someone who would model the clothes, that might look great. On occasion, we've even tacked clothes onto the wall to get the right image.
I just think you want to avoid the sleeves-fully-stretched-out-to-the-point-of-splitting-the-seams look. Too "flat" for my taste.
Maybe some of his manufactures have some photos at their site? Is this what is usually done for these sell sites?
That's a possibility ... couldn't hurt to ask.
You seem hesitant to go out to the client and setup a photoshoot. Since you subcontract so much already, have you thought of doing the same for the photos? Surely there's a photog in your client's area. Maybe check for a photography school or a community college with photography classes for some cheap labor.
Or, you could put it off on the client. They provide the images they want on the site. How they get them is up to them. Also, the quality of the pics is up to them. If they shoot in bad light or with a similair colored background to the garment, it's their fault.
It's all a matter of how much they are willing to pay you and what you're willing to do.
As for maintenance, you probably have two choices. They retain you on a regular basis to make site updates/changes or you design a way for them to do it themselves.
Obviously the self-updating will be more expensive up front, but it will probably be cheaper for them in the long run and they don't have to wait for you to make the changes. Of course, it also means that you'll be out of the photography loop, so setting up the photo shoot for the first batch of images is probably pointless.
Good luck :)
Just thought i would reply here as i've had some recent experience with a small business clothing store and have come out of the experience learning an aweful lot....
For one, i've realized that it's quite a bit of work to make a small business clothing store succeed - both in terms of time spent on site design/production and on marketing/SEO. This requires a committment by the small business owner as they do not generally have a large budget to sink on the site, marketing or maintenance. Frequent updates are really vital - if the product line doesn't change much, i would recommend the owner write some sort of diary, events posting, recent news to keep repeat visitors interested....now onto the photography.....
Wow....did i ever overestimate how much work this would be. I new i was a novice photographer but i sort of had an interest in it and thought what the hell. Client did not have the money to put in $1000.00 for professional photography. I bought some lights and some umbrellas, plus fabric backdrop like what. Client was VERY particular on how her custom clothing looked. We tried human models which was very, very difficult to coordinate on a regular basis. We moved to static models but constantly fought with lighting. We had a cheaper digital camera that i was using as well as 35mm. I would have preferred for the client to just leave me alone to play with things but that wasn't the case - because she knew i was an amateur she was in my face the whole time....very frustrating. In total, we spent months and months trying to get our setup correct. Now that i have a better idea of what i'm doing, i'm much more prepared...but i will seek out more professional photographers for advice on lighting, setup and general photographic techniques. In the end, i don't think the photos turned out too bad. I know i have a long, long way to go.
My relationship with the client is still solid and she is happy with where the site is at to date....actually heading to her Christmas party tonight :)
cheers
