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| Red Yarn Wrapped Upcycled Bottle Vases By Free Spirit Designs |
Product Photography
This week has been all about photography for me one way and another.
As i've gained experience with selling my craftwork online it has gradually become apparent that the quality of product photographs is everything to do with whether they sell or not. I've decided to start approaching product photography as if it is the photo itself that i wish to sell rather than the product in the hope that this will create the most appealing results! (i will let you know in due course how this works out for me :))
White Backgrounds
I've started re-taking my product photos with white backgrounds. The yarn wrapped bottle vases pictured above were the first and i'm pretty pleased with the results. I've also fallen back in love with them now that winter is approaching! I think they are a cute way of cosying up the atmos :)
I've been meaning to change the background of my product images to white for a while as i have realised that this style works much better in situations where a number of items are featured together in a collection (such as an Etsy treasury or a magazine collage) and it makes sense to make them suitable for such features! I do love lifestyle shots but in most online selling situations such as a website or Etsy/Floksy/WTY shop there is room for several images so plenty of potential to show items in context aswell.
During the September CRAFTfest week i was introduced to an interesting site called Foto Fuze via this blog post by Kerri Roberts. It offers a free service to whiten the backgrounds of your product photos (Kerri talks about how it has worked for her in her blog post). I had a little trouble trying to get the desired effect with my mug photos because they are a bit tricky being white on white but i intend to persevere and have a go with some of my other photos soon (i'd be interested to know if you've had any experience with this service too!)
Wow Thank You Publicity Opportunities
Another thing that's got me thinking about product photography is a couple of opportunities Tracey at Wow Thank You has offered sellers. One is to upload images to Press Loft on a pay per image basis with a commitment of six months. Press Loft is a site where press pay to download images for their papers, magazines etc and having product photos on there is a great way to increase your chances of getting featured (especially if the photos are good!)
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| Free Spirit Designs Product Range |
Tracey also sent out an email to sellers on Friday with a request for product range photos - she will choose the best one on Monday to be featured in a full page advert for WTY in The BBC Homes And Antiques Magazine. This was just too good an opportunity to miss so i took this picture of my range and sent it off to her... fingers crossed!
Tomato Soup Mug
On the making side of things i have managed to finnish off my tomato soup mug. Here it is complete with recipe on the reverse and yummy soup within!
Thank you so much for your kind comments and fabulous ideas for other soups i could use this idea for! I hope you like how it has turned out :)
Handmade Birthdays - Camera Strap
I will leave you today with this picture of a camera strap i made this week as a birthday present for a lovely young lady in the family who has just turned 13. It was fun to have a go at something a bit different (although it weirdly tied in with the photography theme!) and she seemed super pleased with it which was the best bit of all :)
Wishing you a wonderful week :) x
Lots of lovely makes. I do like the bottles you have wrapped - such a gorgeous colour. Great pics too. Hope you have a good week.
ReplyDeletethank you! i love the colour too, nice and warming for the cold days ahead!! x
DeleteI will pop back when I have more time and check out your links - yes, product photography is a really important aspect of selling. I love the idea of approaching it like you are doing! Press Loft can work really, really well - it did for me (rather too well, to be honest but it was just before Christmas!).
ReplyDeletethank you Wendy! great info as always :)
Deletei will let you know how i get on with Press Loft... i'm trying to decide what the best images to send in would be... things i have the stock to reproduce easily i guess!! x
Gosh you have been busy. I think your photography looks great. I think the soup mug with a recipe on the back is a winner.
ReplyDeletethank you very much! x
DeleteFunny you should mention photography, I've just been trying to fathom out the complexities of tagging photos in order to move them up the Google rankings. It made me realise that perhaps I should pay a little more attention to the quality of the picture itself. Love the bottles, like you say, very warming perfect for this time of year.
ReplyDeletewow, i haven't even thought of that aspect yet... so much to learn! x
DeleteI think you are so right about photos - lifestyle shots are great in some circumstances but the white background seems to work in more situations.
ReplyDeleteI'm still struggling to find a good place to take my photos as light is a problem in this house, but hoping to come up with a solution soon!
Love the colour of the yarn wrapped bottles :)
i have that problem too so take all my photos outside.. it works okay as long as the weather is nice!
Deletethank you, i love the colour too :) x
Great photos :) very easy to end up with very busy photos that detract from the product!
ReplyDeletethank you :) yes that's so true!
DeleteI really like the camera strap - just the right amount of girly in it! Good luck with your photo's. I think the bottles look stunning against the white background.
ReplyDeletethank you! yes, its a fine line and i didn't want to go into girlie overload... i'm glad you like the result too!
Deletei agree, red on white seems to work well... white on white (i.e. the mugs) is trickier to pull off.. but i'm getting there :) x
Photographing my cards properly is something I keep meaning to do, but never really get around to doing. I must try harder!
ReplyDeletei know what you mean... its so hard to find time for everything! x
DeleteYour banner photo for WTY looks great, I was thinking of doing one but was too pushed for time, good luck with it :)
ReplyDeleteAlso your white on white mug photo looks brilliant, I'll certainly be trying out your link.
Jan x
thanks Jan that's really kind of you :)
Deletei'm glad you like the mug shots (pardon the pun!) these are actually ones that i just took outside on a cloudy day and then brightened on i-photo, i do seem to gradually be getting better at this... but it does take time!!! x
Fab makes shared - love them all! Especially the camera strap :-)
ReplyDeleteThe soup looks perfect for the cooler weather now :-)
Claire
thank you very much Clare! x
DeleteI love the wrapped bottles,such a lovely rich colour.I also love the soup mug-great idea to put the recipe on!
ReplyDeletethank you! i'm glad you like :) x
DeleteI agree with you about the photos, although because of my products I think some of my knitted creatures look best out in nature. I like your tomato soup mug even more than before.
ReplyDeletethank you! i'm glad you like how the mug turned out :)
Deleteyes, there are no hard and fast rules with photography are there... or a lot of other things for that matter! i like photographs taken in nature too :) x
Great post! Something I need to revisit!! I need to put some more time into my product photos too! If only there was more time in the day :) You tomato soup mug is gorgeous!
ReplyDeleteIt really is hard to fit everything in isn't it... at least most people seem to be in the same boat where that's concerned!
Deletei'm really glad you like my soup mug :) thank you! x
Well done on your makes this week and think the recipe on the mug looks so good.
ReplyDeletethank you! i'm really glad you like how it turned out :) x
DeleteProduct photography is also a dilemma for me too, but I like your line of thinking in that your are selling the photo.
ReplyDeleteYour photos look wonderful, I also was recently introduced to fotofuze and its been a massive time saver for tweaking the product photos I already have and how fab to see that you have gone ahead and put the recipe on your mug such a fantasia idea.
thanks Clare! I think that product photos are probably one of those things where there is always room for improvement, thanks for letting me know about your experiences with fotofuze, i think i need to do a bit more experimenting to get the most out of it!
Deleteyay! i'm glad you like the mug with the recipe added, thank you :) x
Hi Natalie, the photos look great, so the work has obviously really paid off. And I adore the yarn bottles, they will look really festive later in the year :o) I've joined Photo Fuze now and will have a look later - thanks for the tip! I used to erase backgrounds, but I have just designed a new range of products that stand up and I think it's important to lighten the background to keep the shadows - as they really enhance them.
ReplyDeletethank you very much!
Deletei'm glad that the link to fotofuze was helpful for you. That is an interesting point about shadows, i agree that they do enhance an image and make it more 'real' looking... i'm trying to figure out the best time of day and weather conditions to get the 'right' (i.e. not too dark or big) shadows now! x
I'm still experimenting with photos and as I often use softer colours white isn't always the best way to go I think. But am planning to give the photofuze site a go as I struggle with pinky blue backgrounds when I use white. I love the bottles, I cover jars in crochet or knitting, but tend to use them more for gifts for friends at the moment :-)
ReplyDeletei know, its tricky isn't it as not everything looks great on white... i guess its just a matter of working out what works best for your products and going for it!
Deletei'm glad you like my bottle vases :) your crochet and knitted ones sound fab! x
I've just started using fotofuze myself, its really useful isn't it? I still have lots to learn tho!
ReplyDeleteThe vase is gorgeous and the white background really sets it off.
The tomato soup mug is fab.
thanks very much Harriet!
Deleteyes, fotofuze does seem like a good resource, i will need to spend some time figuring out how to use it properly though i think! x
Really interesting post. I've always thought you photos look great but it was interesting to hear about the white background. Good luck with the ad space, your tomato soup cup looks lovely, the recipe on the back is a fab idea. Thanks for sharing. Ali x
ReplyDeleteawww thanks Ali! that's really kind of you to say :)
Deletei'm glad you like the mug too, it may be the first of many! x
Those yarn wrapped bottles do look warming. Love the photo of your range. Fingers crossed it gets chosen. Now we can all become soup experts with your recipe mug :-)
ReplyDeletethanks Stephen! i can highly recommend my tomato soup :) x
DeleteIt must be a photo kind of week. Maybe it's the end of summer and daylight which does it! Your photos look great
ReplyDeletethank you x
Deletei know! it seems to be a popular subject at the moment :)