Product Photography Skills That Every Photographer Needs

Updated on November 2, 2022 in Photography by Nishant Shrimali

Just like every professional career, it requires more than just one skill to carry out a successful project. Photography is not different when I say that.

It is a collection of closely knitted and important skills based on the kind specialty.

I am sharing with you the product photography skills that every professional photographer needs.

Skills one needs to ensure that the whole project, contract-based or full-time, runs smoothly and results are no less than perfect.

Let’s get started right away!

Most Important Product Photography Skills You Must Look Forward To

Research

Nothing can be left to chance when the goal is to sell products. Research is one of the essential product photography skills that one needs.

It helps the team understand various things from the start, like:

• How to capture a particular type of product/material?
• Angles that best present the product.
• How are competitors doing it?
• The aspect ratio of the images.
• Making products distinctive and part of the brand.

All this requires a lot of brainstorming, mood board creations, and research. And while these are only a few questions, others can be related to props, lighting, studio, product shipping, timeline, and more.

Product Understanding

Product understanding means having an insight into what the product is and who it targets. Based on the following insights, the scene and setup are prepared.

The props, models, camera equipment, lighting, and everything else depend on how well you understand your product and your customer.

This makes product understanding one of the most important product photography skills to have.

This skill also helps align the product with the brand emotion, making the experience more personal and brand-driven.

Brief Writing

You don’t have to be a writer about this, but being able to share what exactly you are looking for does help. It ensures everyone is on the same page and understands the goal, process, and outcome.

The writing part also comes in handy in creating job descriptions for models and sharing the type of model that you are looking forward to hiring, based on the job requirements.

Writing also helps the management team learn about the resources that will be required, as well as the project’s progress.

Again, you don’t need excellence here, but having the skills to write good briefs does help.

Team Management

Among all the product photography skills discussed here, a photographer requires good communication skills. What they also need is the ability to manage their teams during the shoot as well as the whole length of the project.

This could be the in-house team, people that the photographer works with in the studio, and other teams like creative and art directors.

If one is outsourcing product photography, the photographer’s good understanding of the project management tool is also highly effective in helping the team keep up.

Photography & Lighting

Photography and lighting are skills that are surely the backbone of this career.

That is why it is very likely that one must have the skills to operate a DSLR camera professionally and a good understanding of lighting.

Over the years, PixelPhant has shared some of the best resources for product photography that you should check.

Post-Production

Like the writing part, post-production work is one of the many valuable product photography skills a photographer can have.

It means having a basic understanding of Photoshop is also beneficial.

Even if the photos are outsourced to the photo editing expert, knowing the tools help in setting requirement and explaining to the team what you are looking forward to.

Bonus Read

Product photography is one of the most versatile and growing photography industries. And the above product photography skills we discussed are all aligned to help you grow professionally.

As more and more shops are moving online, the demand for high-quality photographers is also increasing.

To ensure photographers can focus on the tasks on their hands, one service they often look forward to is the eCommerce photo post-production. A service that can help them understand the requirements and professionally edit their product images.

PixelPhant is an eCommerce product photo editing service working with photographers and brands across the globe. Get a free trial now.

Beautiful product images across your website.

Background Removal, Clipping Path, Color Correction, Cropping & Resize, Retouching, adding Shadows, and more.

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