| Photography is an art, and product photography is a | | | | customer what a product looks like is rarely enough |
| fine art. Unfortunately not everyone seems to realise | | | | to persuade them to reach into their pocket, pull out |
| this, and a great many small and even medium sized | | | | their wallet and part with their hard earned cash. |
| business owners are failing to appreciate the huge | | | | Product photography has to work a very great deal |
| marketing potential in advertising photography. Part | | | | harder than this, and yet this fact is lost on so many |
| of the problem seems to be the fact that | | | | people. |
| photography itself has never been as easy, or as | | | | Advertising photography is the equivalent of getting |
| technologically advanced as before. | | | | your best salesman to take your product out to |
| With high resolution multi mega pixel digital cameras | | | | customers, and sell. But your best salesman isn't |
| with more buttons that the early NASA spacecraft, | | | | going to simply knock at the door, wait for it to be |
| and with software available which promises to | | | | opened and then present the customer with a |
| transform your family snaps into something an art | | | | chance to look at your product without a word being |
| gallery would be clamouring for, product photography | | | | said, and no real attempt to engage with the |
| seems to be happily within the realm of anyone's | | | | customer. |
| capability. | | | | Product photography has to be able to quickly and |
| Yet in truth there is so much more to advertising | | | | effectively engage with the target audience, and this |
| photography than simply walking up to your latest | | | | simply cannot happen if all the audience is presented |
| product, whipping out a camera, running off a few | | | | with is the equivalent of someone's rather blurred, |
| artistic shots, running them through a computer to | | | | fairly unappealing and distinctly bland photograph. |
| crop them, tweak them, and then hurling them at | | | | So how do you make product photography work, |
| your online catalogue or printed brochure in the | | | | rather than stand there looking rather gormless and |
| happy but misguided hope they will sell your product. | | | | lost? The answer is to make the camera work |
| Advertising photography is all about selling products, | | | | harder, to introduce a range of skills and tricks to |
| but this is quite different from just taking | | | | generate a creative image of the product that |
| photographs of your products and thinking that they | | | | reaches out to the audience, says something, |
| are enough to sell them. Think of it this way. Imagine | | | | communicates an idea, a thought, an attitude and |
| you have a fantastic product, and you give it to a | | | | generates an immediate response that makes the |
| salesman to sell, going door to door. | | | | customer want to find out more. |
| Your cheesy salesman walks promptly up to the first | | | | Is this possible? Of course it is, it happens every day. |
| door, rings the doorbell and waits, bearing the | | | | Almost certainly you yourself have bought something |
| product in his hands. The door opens, and the | | | | as a result of seeing a picture of it first. The picture |
| resident peers out at the salesman. The salesman | | | | alone may not have fully convinced you, but it |
| peers back. Nothing happens. The salesman then | | | | probably convinced you enough to find out more, and |
| holds up the product a little closer and nearer the | | | | that in itself is the mark of an effective use of |
| resident, who looks back at the salesman in | | | | product photography. The camera may never lie, but |
| bewilderment one last time before shutting the door. | | | | in the right hands, it can sell as well as any salesman, |
| Rinse and repeat. | | | | and all without a garish tie and cheesy grin. |
| The problem is that just showing a potential | | | | |