A Guide to On-Model & Product Photography
Best Practices for On-Model & Product Photography to Achieve Your Brand’s Visual Identity in E-Commerce.
Combining On-Model and Product Photography on an E-Commerce shoot is a great way to enhance any brand’s identity and strive for more specific content that connects with the target audience. Integrating models in professional product shots helps display the item and makes it automatically more interactive: the audience is able to fully understand what the product is all about and how to use it while seeing how it can be seamlessly integrated into their everyday lives.
However, a model adds another factor to the shoot and means planning ahead and rethinking some previously made decisions. Furthermore, it means dedicating more time and effort to directing the model and ensuring the product doesn’t get lost in the scene. However, if executed correctly, it leads to content that reflects a more substantial visual identity.
Choosing the Right Backdrop
The backdrop is one of the first things to consider when planning any e-commerce shoot. When working with both products and models, it’s even more important. The backdrop can’t clash or distract the viewer from the item and should ideally enhance its colors and features and work well with the model’s skin tone. A clean and simple plain backdrop without any distracting patterns or textures works best and should allow for the product and the model to be properly staged.
Working with the Right Lighting & Equipment
When including a model is easy to forget about the product quickly. It’s important to keep in mind that the product should always be the focus in these kinds of shootings and go the extra mile to make sure it’s presented as polished as possible. To achieve that, it’s crucial that the set is evenly lit and the model and product adequately separated from the background. Softer light is almost always preferable, enhancing the skin tone of the model and helping feature all the details of the product: harsh shadows can overcast some of its elements.
Focusing on the Details
The details of the product are often what set it apart from other similar items on the market. Selecting the right lens and directing the model to help showcase all its features is a crucial step. It’s also essential to keep in mind that a person is wearing or holding the product and styling it correctly: creases can appear, sweat or stains, or even marks or footprints if the item has any reflective surfaces. Finally, making sure there are some images of the product alone is also an important thing to have in mind to ensure we’re making the most out of our time in the studio and completing the shooting with varied and different visual material.
Adding the Final Touches
All images, however careful the styling and staging have been, need some fixing up during the post-production stage, especially when integrating models into the final result. Brightness, shadows, highlights, white balance… they all can be fixed and help convey the final vision to life, whether it needs a few tweaks or significant changes.
Even though planning and shooting e-commerce with both model and product adds a level of difficulty, the results are often unparalleled when shooting just the product. The item becomes more interactive, and when carried out correctly, the final results connect and inspire the audience.
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Slate Studios is a Creative Production Company focused on Advertising & Editorial services for the Fashion, Beauty, and Lifestyle Industries. Featuring in house art buying, studio, equipment, retouching & production capabilities, Slate Studios offers end to end digital content production across still & motion, streamlining projects of high complexity for our clients. With a focus on strategy, creativity, innovation, and quality, Slate Studios is proud to support digital content initiatives for the world’s leading names in the fashion, beauty, & lifestyle sectors.
