How Do I Stage My Product?

Cabin Decor

You have a great product and you’ve got your product on white shots, but you need that one great shot-often referred to as a “hero” shot for your Amazon product page. Even with minimal equipment you can maximize your composition to stage your product.

This rustic cabin decor lamp with painted shade and metal art; and small wood carvings against a tongue and groove wood wall serves as the canvas to creating more dramatic photography.  This is your stage and these are the basic elements to arrange as you look for the shot you’re after.  This isn’t about being quick-it takes time and a lot of shots.  Beyond arranging what you see through the lens you’ll change up the shutter speed and focal length for a wide range of variables to find that end shot.

Cabin Decorating Theme
Turns out less is more.Rustic Cabin Hallway
Adding a floral stem to the very foreground adds shadow and depth. The focus is clearly on the cabin lamp with the floral having the bokeh. This is using a very slow shutter speed and wide open aperture (2.8).

Bokeh
Here the focus is reversed-bringing the floral into focus maintaining the same slow shutter speed and aperture. This might work for a backdrop image for marketing text while you still display your product.

Cabin Rustic Decor
The experimenting continues, same lens settings, but rearranging the floral, playing with the light.  This, too, can be a nice backdrop drawing the eye to the foreground where you might add your marketing message for a website slider.

Rustic Cabin Decor on Tongue and Groove paneling

Then often you come full circle to include parts of several variations of your composition. This used the same settings, pulled in the wood carvings and feathered the floral to a wider angle for a beautifully balanced and bokehed rustic cabin decor photograph.  This gives a lovely staging while highlighting the lamp and giving a vision of how it will look and feeling it creates once brought into the buyer’s home.

Canon Lens EF70-200mm f/2.8L USM
Slow Exposure 0.3 seconds
Rotolight to spot

Amazon Product Photographer

Amazon Product Size Reference

Product photography on Amazon has required the product’s background to be pure white with a hex number of 255, 255, 255.  This is still standard, but Amazon has broadened product images to include lifestyle photos and staging shots.  These allow the seller to show their product in a setting it will be used (staging image) or a person interacting with the product (lifestyle image).
Camaro Product Staging
Our client needed his very small hidden camera in a staging setting, where from a distance it is unlikely to be easily seen and in multiple settings to show its diversity. In addition to stating the measurements in his product details he wanted a visual reference to show the size of his camera. For this purpose, he chose a silver dollar (top image).
Product Staging with Inset

The product and interior staging shots photos were shot using a Canon 100mm 2.8 macro lens with continuous fluorescent lighting. The exterior auto staged photo was shot with natural light, angling the car for optimum use of sunlight.

Product on Black Acrylic

Product on Black Acrylic Staged

This innovative speaker design offers stunning sound.  The product photography needed to reflect the mood.

The photographer used two Arri 650T fresnel lights with 300 watt bulbs and two Matthews 48″ x 48″ artificial silk scrims, 1.6 stops.  Also used a Rotolight NEO matching the Arri tungsten temperature for the top of the speaker.
Canon 5D MarkIII
Canon 100mm 2.8 macro lens

We used a sheet of black acrylic to create a classic look.  There is nothing in the background, but shooting at a 9.0 aperture kept the product in sharp focus while turning the background completely black. This shot is straight out of the camera, no Photoshop adjustments or editing.

Speaker on Black

Simple Product Staging on Black Acrylic

The designer requested a size perspective so we added wine glasses for a simple staged product image.

Product Styling

Product Styling
This diffuser product begins with a lush reflective foreground and organic items to complement the style of this product.  Shooting on a specialized surface gives the refection we were after fading into white.  This is achieved by a lot of light precisely directed.
Styled Product Photography
For a dramatic style we pulled in a textured background, a simple brick and keeping our organic theme – a few accents to give this diffuser a new face!

Read more about product styling.

Table Top Product Styling

Glass on White Background
The beauty of clear shiny glass.  Lighting glass requires a toolbox of gadgets to achieve the final product image on white.  A specialized surface gives the reflection in the foreground at the base of the glass diffuser. In order to keep any shadow from interfering with the transparency looking front to back means flooding the background with light and strategically placed strobe flashes. While striving for glass on white be careful not to lose the definition of the bottle. We used a number of light modifiers and redirected light as need to create this final image of lightness and clarity.

Product Staging

Product on White, Spice Jars
Product on a white background has become the standard for product images.  Whether to use a full shadow, or slight shadow, or no shadow is the next question.  But when you’re ready to show off your product creativity opens a fabulous door.  The above photo of spice jars keeps three of the four jars in focus, with a slight out of focus on the third jar, for a subtle statement.

The next photo is a lovely simple composition, still on white for an open, floating feeling, adding the spoon for a touch of lifestyle.  A subtle product styling idea.
Spice Jars for Product Styling
Still keeping the product styling simple we’ve added an organic feel using wood for the  presentation. These are only a few ways to style your product. Keep your own product as an alternative to stock photography for your website.
Product Styling
Finally adding a full background frames the jars using a brick for strong base statement.  The first jar has the strength and focus, allowing the other jars to become part of the background.  You get the idea of the vast possibilities when you’re ready to take bring your product front and center in your website and promotion.
Product Lifestyle Staging

Commercial Photographer

Commercial photographers have more creativity than you think.  It’s about manipulating the elements.  This is an exciting dramatic photo using only one light.

commercial photography

Arri Fresnel 650 with a 300 watt bulb
Using a plastic diffusion sheet background called translum made by Savage paper.
Lens EF70-200mm f/2.8L USM
ISO Speed 125
White Balance Mode Color Temperature(9900K)
Av( Aperture Value ) 16.0
Tv( Shutter Speed ) 0.3

Business owners need original photos for their marketing.  So many clients have been exasperated feeling they have nothing worth photographing, particularly when their business is service oriented or their tools are not flashy and exciting.  As a commercial photographer it’s my challenge to find interesting composition in the ordinary.  This turns an ordinary table top photo into a dazzling advertisement image.

Alternative to Stock Photography

Now that Google is looking less favorably on stock photography you’ll be looking at options for original photos for your website. If your business produces products you’ll find this an easier solution. But when you provide services it can be more challenging to find ways to compose photos to represent your services.

alternative to stock photography

composite photography

photography for services

Creative Product Staging

 

Google has expanded its desire for original content to include original photography, and is  looking less favorably on stock photography.  It is part of how Google decides which websites have more authority.  As the internet has morphed it’s a natural progression for each website to have its own original content for a unique online presence.

As you travel the internet you’ll begin to recognize stock photography as you see the same photo on multiple websites.  Stock photography used to be a cost effective solution for website owners. Recent years have seen substantial increases in the cost of stock photography.  If you choose 10 photos at $50 each for your website – you can afford to have original photos shot.

product staging photographer

These two shots are staged.  Using promotional items strengthens the branding, and also helps deter your website photos being stolen.

Another huge plus for having your own photos is Google’s image search. Your images will  work as an advertisement for your services and products.  Bring an original touch to your website. View more staged photography.

creative staging photography

Product Staging Photography

Product Staging Photography

Staging photography enhances a product in variety of ways, creating a beautiful setting with props, lights, visual aids or composite photography.

While this is a simple looking shot, it took multiple lighting techniques, composite photography and custom camera settings to achieve this desired look.

The same bottle was re-shot with a chilling blue (see below), using diffusion to create a background, precision is the key. Staging Vodka Bottle