Captivating beauty product photography is a fantastic way to showcase your perfect products to prospective and existing customers. Investing in cosmetic product photography is essential, but many people struggle with how to create a visually appealing brand with product photography.
The solution is to do it yourself!
Skincare product photography can be as simple or as complex as you choose. One image can be used in several ways, including social media content and website visuals, to physical flyers and product packaging. Here’s why product photography is important, and how you can get great images yourself!
Why is good product photography essential for your beauty brand?
If you want your natural beauty brand to be successful, you’ll want to pay as much attention to how your products look as well as how they perform.
As people who are passionate about natural and organic beauty, we naturally want our products to be the very best they can be and we’d like to ensure that as many people as possible benefit from using them. And no doubt, what’s inside the packaging is likely to be fantastic and a lot better than most products we find in stores around the world.
However, if your products don’t look visually appealing, people may be less likely to buy them and as such you run the risk of devaluing the potential of your product and your brand.
Having spent so much time, energy, money and effort formulating your products, you’ll want to make sure they are loved by as many people as possible. And, this is exactly where great product photography comes in. It can make the difference between a sale and no sale.
In short, every little thing you can do to create a wonderful perception of your brand and your products, the better. It would be sad to create sensational products that don’t look very good because all you’re doing is limiting their potential.
If you get your branding right, your photography right, and your pricing right, your amazing products will stand a very good chance of being loved by many customers.
Can I do my own beauty product photography?
If you’re reading this article, you’re probably looking to find out how you can improve your cosmetic photography and/or the visual representation of your brand.
The good news for you is, yes you absolutely can take your own photos. Just as you have done with learning how to make your own natural and organic cosmetic products, you can also learn how to take your own product photography.
You just need to know how and where to get started, some tips and ideas to get you off and running and simple instructions on how to plan for, set up and run your own photoshoots.
Confidence is an important factor and that will come from learning the basics and getting stuck in by practicing, trying things out, having a go, and looking for tips, tricks and ideas to help you improve your beauty product photography.
So, don’t be put off or afraid. We all have to start somewhere with what we have available right now and it doesn’t have to be complicated, overly elaborate, time consuming or expensive.
Camera vs smartphone
Natural cosmetic product photography can be incredibly expensive and be a massive outlay for any business if you invest in all of the top-of-the-range cameras, lenses, lights, and backdrops. However, for the vast majority of businesses, this is not necessary at all.
The capabilities of smartphones today mean that they mostly hold their own against DSLRs (digital single-lens reflex cameras), unless you are looking to create more complex effects or use them for large printed advertising, like signage.
So what works best for you?
If you are not quite sure whether cosmetic product photography is for you, we would highly recommend starting with what you have, which is most likely a smartphone. Smartphones are fantastic if you want to create good quality social media content and imagery for a website or for small, printed pieces like flyers.
If you want to pursue product photography as a hobby and learn how to balance shutter speed, aperture and ISO, or create high-quality images for large printed pieces, like signage or banners, then a DSLR is best for you.
Cameras and lenses do not have to be overly expensive, once you know what equipment you need to buy. Second-hand equipment can be purchased for much less and still be in
great condition. Just remember to read through the second-hand store listings for any details, including any faults, and always do your own research.
Perhaps the biggest advantage of a camera, such as a DSLR, over a smartphone is that DSLR images are of a significantly higher resolution, so the camera imagery is of printable quality. This means that you can crop them down if you need and still retain the high picture quality, and you can print them out for advertising purposes without losing any detail.
How do you take your own beauty product photography?
We’d love to help you get started with some top tips and ideas, selecting the right equipment and planning, setting up and running your own photoshoots. It is definitely something you can learn to do.
So, we commissioned a professional photographer to create a class on product photography, which you can find when you become a member of our Natural Cosmetic Formulation Club.
The aim of this class is to provide you with the knowledge, inspiration and confidence to take your own skincare product photographs to use across your business.
Inside this class, students discover:
- How to take beautiful images.
- How to get started with what you have available right now.
- How to take your photos to the next level using more professional equipment.
- The difference between cameras vs smartphones.
- How to set up your camera and smartphone for your photoshoots.
- The importance of aperture, shutter speed and ISO, and how to set these up for your photoshoots.
- How to plan for your photoshoot.
- How to set up your photoshoot, taking into consideration things like lights, composition, backgrounds and props.
- How to work with models.
- Editing photos, troubleshooting and resources for continued learning.
You can find out more about this class as well as the Natural Cosmetic Formulation Club, along with all the other courses and classes held inside the Club, here. Of course, if you have any questions about the classes or the Club in general, please reach out to our customer service team using hello@schoolofnaturalskincare.com.
