planning

Once the quote was accepted, there were scheduled phone calls made between client and I to discuss the details, book a date in for the shoot, ensuring there was enough time to research, gather visual assets and ensure I had all the required equipment to ensure a successful photo shoot.

arrival and set up

I was up bright and early for the photoshoot as my client and I decided shooting on site at her office was most suited to her needs and products. Seeing I had the camera and lighting equipment portable, it was included in the quote.

I was in the car at 5:50am, after packing the car the night before, and arrived on site at 8am.

It took me a comfortable 1 hour to get my equipment set up, which included:

• 2 studio flashes, including soft boxes (diffusers)
• 2 light stands
• Backdrop set up on stand, clamped and positioned safely.
• Camera set up onto tripod.

First series of products set up ready for photographing, including the first photo of the day is using a grey card*.

*A grey card is absolutely critical in branding and product photography, to ensure an accurate representation of the colour of the products. For example, have you ever purchased a product from an online store, stating it was a 'blue shirt', but the image on the website is throwing off weird green vibes?! Or you've ordered a 'red dress' for it to arrive in the mail and it is closer to pink, and not true to the colour in the image. Most likely the photographer has not used a grey card to calibrate the product.

adjustments required during the shoot

For every hamper that my client had, I needed to create three different images.  

One wide angled shot, one middle range and one off centre. 

The wide angled shot and middle range shot required the tripod. the third image required me to move camera off tripod and hand hold. I then reversed the process for the following hamper, and so on.

Once completed, I then needed to adjust my lighting as I was to take all products out of each hamper separately, and place as a group of products and I needed to light it from 45° angle each side. This was handheld, not on the tripod as too limiting with what I could get based on a variety of products in the 11 hampers I was photographing. 

moved to new location for corporate styled images

I then had to pack up all of my equipment and place it into my car where we moved off to the next location which was an airbnb styled house where I was able to capture more candid variety of environments such as balcony, kitchen, bedroom, working on images of both product and client in action based on her requirements of the branding shoot.

I used a speed flash attached to my camera for this series, and where possible, utilized natural light and turned off the flash to get more depth into the images.

This took me about 1.5 hours all up.

post - production

This process can be a bit time consuming. Depending how many images taken on set, there is the upload from camera to backup, then hard drive to Lightroom, then editing (which can take several hours to cull, process and export), then lastly delivery of online gallery.

I have a workflow where I rate my images, and this is a simple and effective method to reduce the images to the ones I am going to edit.

Then I begin the editing process, which can take a few hours, especially if I need to photoshop any shadows, or specific things need to be fixed.

delivery of gallery

It's the final countdown! When I get to exporting the final gallery into my backup drives, I am confident I am now able to create an online gallery on my website where my client can access the gallery for immediate download. Ready to use for print, socials, and sharing. WHOOP!

I am always so excited for this part of the process, because I can't wait to see the images being used by my client to get better results, drive more traffic to their site, and overall to make their brand shine and improve their sales based on quality photography.