How to Make Money with Product Photography

So, exactly how to make money with product photography is quite an involved answer.
Product photography has become very popular and is driven by the increase in e-commerce. Nowadays people are happy shopping online, gone are the reservations shoppers had about security surrounding putting your credit card details into an online shopping form.
Product photographs are used to attract and convince to consumers to purchase one product over another. Competition is fierce and business owners are always looking to gain a competitive advantage in their market place. Having professional product photos is one way of doing this.
Shooting product images is a great way for photographers to earn money. However, in order to make money, you need to treat your product photography seriously. 

Ideas for Making Money with Product Photography

As I have emphasized, a good image has the ability to turn your browsers into purchasers. Having professional standard photographs of your product range is vital if you want to show off your brand without losing credibility due to poor quality images. Professional product photography will improve your image quality, boost your website conversions, and showcase your product in a different way to outshine your competitors through your artistic vision and the skills and experience of a professional photographer.
As far as how to make money with product photography, there are lots of tips which photographers wanting to make an income from product photography can utilise to make that a reality. I have listed some of the top professional product photography tips that will ultimately help you make more money. 

Get a Decent Camera

In order to take quality pictures, you’ll have to invest in a decent camera, a couple of high grade lenses, a tripod and some decent lighting. You can take photos using your mobile phone, but you’ll get way more features on a professional camera that will elevate your product photography. For instance, having the ability to swap lenses dependent upon the effect you are trying to achieve is very important. If you are shooting products that have a lot of intricate detail, it would be nice to have a dedicated macro lens which is designed for just that scenario.
With this leather bracelet, the maker wanted to highlight the detail that went into the leather work and beading. The image below shows a lot of detail, but because I was using a 100mm prime macro lens I was able to capture a lot of information in the RAW version of the image file, which allows me to crop very close to show off that detail even more.

how to make money with product photography

Image dimensions 5427 x 3527 pixels – f/8 ISO 100 59mm 1/100 sec

 

how to make money with product photography

Image dimensions 3467 x 2227 pixels – f/8 ISO 100 59mm 1/100 sec

 

how to make money with product photography

Image dimensions 1421 x 1068 pixels – f/8 ISO 100 59mm 1/100 sec

Having access to a DSLR which captures so much information, coupled with a lens of great quality allows me to capture images which can be cropped to ridiculous levels in order to show off the smallest details. In reality I wouldn’t crop in so tight on this particular product, but with jewelry and watches those small details can look spectacular.

Shooting on a White Background

Depending on the platform the client needs to display their products, changes the type of image you have to shoot. With Amazon for example, they require the main image to be on a plain white background.
There are a few options here. If the product is small enough then a light box is ideal for shooting on a white background. This will set you back about £100, but is a worthwhile investment, because it gives you the option of going to the client and shooting on location.
Be warned though, you will still have to edit the image post shoot to get that perfect white background. I use Lightroom or Photoshop, a professional editing software, to create clipping mask to remove the background. From there I can wither export the image as a jpeg or save it back into Lightroom as a tiff file. 

Getting the Images to Your Client

There are a few ways to let you client see your work prior to them getting their hands on the images. Personally I set up a gallery on my site and send them a link. The advantages to doing this are: 

  • my watermark goes right across the image
  • I have disabled right click actions to prevent downloads
  • Images are compressed which prevents decent printing sizes if they manage to circumnavigate the right click restrictions
  • AND most importantly, they do not get the images until they have paid my invoice!

making money with product photography

Getting Paid for Your Product Photography

So you have done the hard work, and produced some stunning images for your client. They will have an idea of what the finished images look like because you will have been communicating with them all the way through the process. Communication is key. Failing to talk to the client as you progress, almost guarantees you will not fulfill the brief and fail to represent their artistic vision for their products. What this means in reality is that you will have to go back and retake a load of images. This takes time, and time is money. You are reading this because you want to know how to make money with product photography, and this is one way to lose money on a commission. 
Let’s look at an example. You have quoted £295 to shoot a small variety of the same product. Your quote is based on 2 hours shooting time and 4 hours editing. This equates to £49 per hour. Not bad. However, due to a lack of communication you have to redo half the shots and then re-edit them as well. That is at least another 2-3 hours. All of a sudden your hourly rate looks a bit sick at £26 per hour.

Getting Paid per Image or per Session

I actually prefer to get paid per session. I know what my services, experience and skills are worth to me, and I charge accordingly. I quite often see photographers taking flack for ‘not charging enough, and dragging industry prices down’! What a load of bull. I know I could charge more but my viewpoint is that I don’t want just that one job from a client. What I want is for them to be wowed by my work and hire me over and over again.

REMEMBER – It is cheaper to work with existing clients than it is to find new ones.

I hope you enjoyed this article. Good luck with your attempt to make money with your product photography.

Professional Product Photography