Lifestyle Product Photography Guide: Benefits, Tips & How To
Updated on February 13, 2023 in Photography by Alifiya Mustafa
Lifestyle Photography communicates the way of living and how the products become part of life. Being a professional photographer, you must perform lifestyle product photography in a way that conveys the same concept.
Product photos are one of the essential elements of every eCommerce business. 60% of shoppers are more likely to buy from a company with a picture in their search results. 22.6% of the overall search results in the U.S take place on Google images.
In this article, we will be taking you on the journey of what is lifestyle product photography and how you can master this art. So, let’s start the ride!
What is Lifestyle Product Photography?
Lifestyle product photography is a shot in the context of the things that daily life involves. It may include humans, nature, or the environment that tells the product’s story.
The lifestyle photography style tells how the product will look, feel, and work in real life. To capture lifestyle product photography, you need to have a location, people, and the surroundings experiencing the products. If the product is about animals or nature, those will be the elements sharing the product.
Let’s take the example of a bracelet, and you might click the photos of it in the studio under a lightbox. This shows that your product aims to capture complete attention without distractions.
But, this doesn’t communicate how it will look and feel in real life. That cuff could be the size of a finger, and that’s not what customers want to see.
Now imagine a lady at a party on a cruise wearing this bracelet with an astounding gown and feeling lavish. When a customer looks at this kind of photo, she doesn’t just see the bracelet but experiences what the lady in the picture is experiencing. She imagines how she will look and feel if she buys that bracelet, which drives her decision.
That’s the beauty of lifestyle product photography.
Benefits of Lifestyle Product Photography
Lifestyle photography is a great way to make money in the industry. It is because everyone has products, but they want to see them in use; they want to see people using them in situations that talk about the product and give it perspective about what the product is and what it does.
There are some great reasons why product photography is cherished and adored by photographers, brands, as well as the people, such as:
1. Brings Clarity and Maintains Transparency
The first reason why customers adore lifestyle product photography is because of its transparency. The shoppers can see how the product will look and determine its proportions. The eCommerce business owners can keep more clarity on what they are selling compared to studio shoots or detail shots.
Things don’t just work on the white background here when brands display their products interacting with the environment.
According to a study, 22% of the returns happen because the product looks different.
Let’s say if you are looking at a pair of shoes on a white background, it would be challenging to figure out if the shoes are suitable for an eight-year-old, a twelve-year-old, or a 25-year-old until you look for their measurements.
Sometimes, even after looking at the measurements, customers do not feel completely satisfied as they can not imagine how they will look.
Lifestyle photography aids in bringing up clarity in the mind.
2. Imaginary Experience
When looking at lifestyle photography, the customers can live a whole imaginary experience before buying them. No, we are not talking about the free trials or even videos; it is all possible just by looking at a well-clicked lifestyle product photo.
When the customers achieve an imaginary experience for a product, it doesn’t just benefit them but also the sellers. If the background is good, then there is a fair chance that the customers will buy the product – Thanks to lifestyle product photography.
3. Better Engagement
When clarity and relatable experience comes into the frame, it results in better engagement.
Better engagement is sometimes a massive goal for many eCommerce business owners as it is already hard to engage people without meeting in person.
An eCommerce deals with customers they never meet, unlike retail shops where the customers can communicate with the shop owner face to face and the seller, can implement a thousand ways for impressing the customers.
For the eCommerce industry, the best ways to engage people and communicate are based on trust, marketing, and the photos that the customers can see. In this case, lifestyle photography keeps a check on better engagement and compelling marketing that builds trust.
4. Increase Conversions
As mentioned in the above points, lifestyle photography completely captivates the customers. It clears their heads in decision-making as they can determine how that product will work.
According to the Seattle Webdesign – 75% of the buyer’s potential purchase decision depends upon the product photos.
Hence, when the customers are satisfied and start relating to a product, they are more likely to purchase it to feel it for real. This can drastically improve eCommerce business conversion rates.
Also read: Benefits of Hiring a Professional Photo Editing Service for E-commerce.
How to Shoot Perfect Lifestyle Product Photography
Now that you’ve learned what lifestyle photography is and its benefits, you must be eager to master the art of lifestyle product photography.
We’ve listed a few things to help you figure out what to do while pursuing lifestyle product photography.
Create a Master Plan
Your first step into initiating lifestyle product photography is to plan a few things that will shape your campaign. These are:
Determine your Potential Audience
Before shooting any product photos, you will have to plan out who will be your target audience. This includes the age group, gender, lifestyle, profession, interests, education, and many other things that relate to your audience.
This is necessary because you can not click the photographs of makeup products with a perception of having your audience as men and children.
If your potential audience belongs to the age group of 18 to 45, then they might be potentially interested in Bluetooth speakers, gadgets, PlayStation, etc.
Once you are through, you can decide what product to choose, which props to use, what lighting to use, etc., for your lifestyle photography.
Show product in use
We advise you to figure out the lively usage of the product to attract the viewers easily. For instance, if you are shooting a Bluetooth speaker, clicking its photo while it’s kept on a tabletop may look very dull.
On the other hand, you can choose your location to be a beach, with some towels around and some models in their beachwear, partying to the music of the Bluetooth speaker.
To show the speaker’s rough, rugged, and waterproof features, you can place it on the beach sand with some water jumping out of its voice plate. This is a beautiful way to flaunt your lifestyle product photography skills.
This instantly brings life to your product and makes it more relevant. People can relate easily and are likely to be encouraged to buy that speaker for the same purpose.
Choose the product, props, and tools.
After you have your target audience, it’s time to choose the product that adores them and the location where it can be enjoyed and experienced the most.
Props play an important role in lifestyle photography. It helps in filling the voids in the story to make it complete. Choosing the correct props that complement the products can reap some fantastic results.
If we talk about the tools, then if you are a professional photographer, you know what they are. The most basic is is your camera, reflectors, lighting tools, lenses, tripod, etc.
If you are looking for the best camera brands and reflectors, we highly recommend you read our articles about the best camera brands and Reflectors for photography.
2. Keep a Check on the Best Angles
The angles in lifestyle product photography matter a lot. It affects the perception, style, and look of the photo. There are different angles that you can make use of:
a. Straight-eye angle
When you click a photo at an angle at which humans usually look at the object. You’ll click it just as you see it without creating any additional angle.
b. Bird’s eye angle
This is the angle when you click the image with its top view, just as the birds look at things – from the top.
c. Down angle
The product is connected from the downside of it to reveal its bottom.
d. Slant angle
This adds an edge to your product image as it is connected with a bit of tilt.
3. Editing Software is the backbone
The best photo editing software for editing product photography is Adobe Lightroom CC and Adobe Photoshop.
This editing software is essential for every product photo to look astounding and compelling. They are used to correct the images, enhance their quality, and edit the required things, such as logos and credits.
If you click the photo and use it raw, you might have it considered, but if you are a professional and look at your competitors, you may realize that your image lacks the touch of quality that only editing software can help you achieve.
If you own an eCommerce business, then we would recommend you to hire professional Photo Editing Services as they know how to do it better, quicker, and more professionally.
4. Look at what your competitors are doing
To become a master of lifestyle photography, you will have to beat what your competitors are doing. Check what angles are in trend to freeze an eye, and find out what all lenses, cameras, camera brands, and accessories are in use.
You must stay ahead of the competition and ace the trends people are most interested in.
Tips for Lifestyle Product Photography
Before we wrap up the journey, our final tips will aid you in enhancing your lifestyle product photography skills.
Befriend blank spaces for logos, texts, and ideas
You may think that blank spaces are unnecessary or they shift the focus from the product, but let us tell you that it is entirely incorrect.
Blank spaces are essential to keep in your photos so that you can add slogans, logos, or taglines later. They should be saved so you can still have some space to add any creative ideas that come later into your mind.
But be sure that the backdrop you use goes well with your products and that the fonts you use match the style of the product.
Leave Cropping Space
An extra space that you need to take care of is cropping. You will not necessarily use the complete frame for the finished work when you click an image. Hence it is better to leave some space to avoid struggling later.
You might end up with no space for cropping, and the product edges become a trouble if you try to do that.
Take help from Color Wheel
Color Wheel is an excellent tool to figure out which backdrop color to use against the product’s color so that it gives you the image that meets the apple of your eyes.
When you see the colors in Color Wheel, you’ll see that the tints placed on the opposite side of each color are the perfect match that goes well with each other. It has a combination of both warm and cool colors for you to decide on the theme. You can never go wrong with the Color Wheel.
Follow the Golden Spiral and Rule of Thirds
The Golden Ratio and The Rule of Thirds help you to achieve a perfect balance every time you capture a photo.
When you edit an image, you must divide your design into two/three vertical and two/three horizontal lines. You will understand that a spiral design is forming into your image, bringing focus to what you are looking for. It allows you to create an A-symmetrical pleasing design.
With the help of the Golden Spiral, you’ll understand that every time you divide your image, it is divided into quadrilaterals of the same ratio!
Finally ending the ride
The art of lifestyle product photography mesmerizes many and helps achieve transparency, relativity, and better communication with the product.
Suppose you are a professional, a budding photographer, or an eCommerce business owner trying hard to achieve the best quality images that can convey what it’s meant for. In that case, lifestyle product photography is a boon for you.
You can learn, implement, and master lifestyle photography skills in many ways.
We hope that you loved the journey till the end and enjoyed this informative ride with us about lifestyle product photography.
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