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The use of good photography – respect your company’s image

Mark Tomkins

If we’ve seen it once, we’ve seen it a hundred times – and that is businesses using poor photography of their products or services on their website or in their brochure.

It is all too common for businesses to have photos of their products or their staff doing what they do on the company network that number in their hundreds. All of them taken by the boss either on his iPhone or on a normal camera with poor lighting, are blurred or, at best, in low resolution.

Whilst we must applaud them for at least knowing the importance of having photos of their product, it must be noted that the execution sends it all back out of the window.

One of the first things a potential customer does when looking for a product or provider of a service is look for their website or go through a brochure or publication. It is within those few moments, usually seconds, that they will decide whether your company is one with which they want to buy from or engage.

We have discussed before in previous topics the importance of your business’s logo, image and branding and making it the best as it can be – the imagery on your website or in your brochure or advert falls under the same level of importance.

If you are selling a product, a physical thing, making sure that it is well lit, in focus and not cluttered by lots of irrelevant surroundings is vital. You can’t be there to tell the customer that the thing they desire most is the fourth thing from the left, just behind that other big thing that shouldn’t even be in the photo anyway. Clear, crisp and well produced photography is what is going to sell your product when compared to a competitor. It’s about dressing up your product in the best possible light – afterall, you’d do the same if you had a shop – so a website and brochure are no different.

A very good example of how product photography should be done is that done by our friends over at Barefaced Beauty, the mineral makeup specialists. We have been fortunate enough to work with the team there for the last 18 months and presenting the product in its best possible light is primary. We are in the process of designing and building a new website for the brand at the moment – due for launch December 2012, but are pleased to be working with a brand that has taken the time and forethought of having good product photography done.

fruitful bloomsAnother great example is from the team at Fruitful Blooms Chocolatiers – in much the same way as the makeup products need to look their best, so do the amazing creations hand made by the master chocolatiers. When we were engaged to design their brand and website, we made sure that as part of the project, good quality photography was needed to make sure the sweet creations were shown at their most delicious.

Now, let’s cut to the chase and talk turkey – it’s not free (unless you have a decent camera that can be mounted on a tripod and can be shot in a bright room or studio) in which case, you probably already do it yourself, anyway. However, with a bit of an investment in a photographer for a day or half day, the images will last you for a good few years of the life of the product, longer if it doesn’t change its appearance.

Without wanting to over-stress the importance, another perfect example, albeit not a client of ours (yet!) is Apple. Their product photography is the epitome of how product images should be displayed – crisp, well-lit and on as clean and simple background as possible.

So, if you are considering a new website, brochure or piece of marketing for your business and have that folder of dodgy, blurred and useless photos on the company network, tell us and we’ll factor that in to the project and introduce you to our most trusted photographers that will make your product look like a million quid.

For more information on this, call us in the studio on 01442 262840.