Outdoor photos or video of a product are great assets for any product based business to have on hand since they can be used in a variety of different ways. While professional photos of a product on a plain white background are definitely important for businesses selling their products online and some ecommerce platforms, such as Amazon, have very specific photo requirements for the product to be able to be listed on their platform, it can also be advantageous to have photos of the product in other settings such as the outdoors, depending on the product and the business, brand, or organization.
For example, depending on the intent that the photo or video clip was created with, a product photo or video clip set outdoors can be used to convey a message about the brand not just about the product, or included in an advertisement for the product, or used for posting or advertising either the product or the brand on social media, or in a brochure, or in many other ways.
Here are five steps important steps when getting ready to work with a photographer or videographer to create product photos or videos set in an outdoor natural or urban setting.
Step 1. Assessing what photos, videos, or video clips the organization already has featuring this particular product is important, especially for business or organization that have multiple people or a whole team involved in creating marketing or visual content.
Knowing what photos or videos the brand, business, or organization already has can help when then determining what outdoor product photos or videos the brand needs. It also reduces the risk of re-creating images or videos that the brand already has plenty of, while not creating the types that the brand doesn’t have at all but really needs.
*I created a Digital Visual Asset Assessment Workbook to help with the process of determining what photos or other visuals an organization already has. It can be downloaded for free from this link.
Step 2. Determining what kinds of outdoor product images or video the organization needs for its upcoming content being created or upcoming advertising campaigns. For example, if the organization is creating content around how the product is great to take on a spring or summer beach vacation, a great photo or video of the product on the beach can visually convey this message.
*FYI if outdoor beach product photos and/or videos are needed, I am currently running a special offer for beach product photos and video clips with shoot dates in November 2019, December 2019, and April 2020. More information and booking options are available at this link.
Step 3. Prioritizing the brand’s needs for product photos and videos based on which content is most important or which is going to be needed the soonest.
Knowing this can help knowing which outdoor product shoots to schedule first, as well as help with budgeting, with the most important visual content creation being allocated more of the budget than the less important ones.
Step 4. Considering the time frame and any hard deadlines that exist is an important step, especially for creating product photos or videos that need to be finished in time before a certain season starts, or to meet a deadline to be included as an advertisement in a specific publication.
For instance products to be advertised as summer beach products sometimes are photographed or filmed the summer before they are needed, which is a whole year in advance.
Other times, the need is only a few weeks in advance as seasonality is not as important for these photos or only a few photos or short video clips are needed.
Step 5. Finally, contacting the commercial photographer or videographer who you feel can create the outdoor product photos or videos to best meet the business, brand, or organization’s needs and working with her/him/them to create visuals that will visually communicate what the brand is trying to convey.
Some photographers or videographers can help with any of the steps for determining which photos or videos are needed as well as collaborating on the selection of location, best weather for the product shoot (sunny days for most, but for products like umbrellas, a rainy day would actually be better to photograph or film an umbrella), the style, mood, the overall branding or aesthetic like I do.
In conclusion, there are multiple steps that go into planning a product photo or video shoot, this blog post gave a brief overview of 5 important ones.
Product photos or videos in an outdoor setting are great for businesses, brands, and organizations to have in addition to professional product photos on a plain white background as the outdoor ones can be used in a variety of different ways such as conveying a branded message, or for use in advertising to increase sales of the product, or many other ways.
Do you have any tips or steps to add? I’d love to hear them, post a comment below!