We’ve performed a number of product photoshoots for natural products companies. We always enjoy these types of products where we carefully construct an environment that gives the feel of the brand and tells a story.
In this composition, we sourced cranberries used as decor because they were far easier to work with than the cranberries available. When cranberries are available, they are plump, bold and vibrant, and easy to work with. But when you’re out of season, frozen cranberries are wrinkly and lack appeal when brought to room temperature (we’ve shot a lot of berries).
(Note: Pardon the low resolution and lack of quality on the photo… as we wrote this, we noticed our plugin that crunches photos for web optimization went a bit too far on this one).
Sourcing natural wood items for these shoots was simple and fun. But for something more unique than a wooden table as a base, we measured, designed, and created a board with the company’s logo for greater brand presence.
Here’s a tear sheet from a composition used in print without its copy. Our photos are intentionally composed to leave plenty of copy space, which makes marketers happy.
This was an old photoshoot, but there are some approaches relevant to point out. The material used on their stand-up pouches was very difficult to photograph due to the wrinkles and its reflective nature.
This was way back before PSD mockups were popular and even available. Therefore, our approach was to take the design file and build a mock-up and photograph it like we did here.
Nowadays, it’s a substantial cost savings for most customers needs to use an appropriate PSD template for stand-up pouches such as what we’ve done more recently for another product line below. There’s still an art to it… and it’s not as simple as one might think. Aspects of the bag’s proportion are critical, and you want a true and accurate placement of the zip line and tear notch. If there is product showing through, it’s also critical to handle that separately as it can vary substantially from what it actually looks like in person.
We’ve had situations where we did a separate photoshoot just for the little product in the hole to give it contrast and texture for a greater appeal (like in the photo below). When it’s a key product shot, it HAS to look GREAT. You don’t want crumbs and a jambalaya of product in the area as it distracts from the packaging as a whole.
