4 Tips To Nail Photography For Your Business

When it comes to the photos you use on your business site or on product pages, getting really great photos is essential. To really nail photography for your business, you don't necessarily need lots of professional lighting equipment, a professional camera, or even a professional photographer.

You need your own personal style that reflects your business through your product photographs.

In this article, we're going to look at the ways you can do business photography yourself so that whether you're photographing incredible nail art from the nail techs in your beauty salon or you're trying to nail pictures of your skincare and haircare lines sold through your hair salons, the photographs you create will draw clients in and reflect your brand image.

Doing Business Photography The Right Way

“Smile! Say Cheese!…  and with the click of the camera’s shutter button, you have yourself a great picture to post on your Instagram story.

This norm is what makes people think that photography is something that just anyone can do - but it’s not. When it comes to taking pictures for your business, you may realize that it is not as simple as you thought. If you've ever tried to take a photography course then you would understand where we’re coming from.

A business, whether new or undergoing rebranding, needs to be positioned in a way that gives the brand a positive public outlook. That’s why you need the services of a professional business photographer. A pro photographer is an expert in creating aesthetic pictures to promote your business and your brand.

However, most times, people don’t have enough money to employ the services of a professional photographer. So, they go for the next best alternative -  themselves!

This comes with its advantages and drawbacks. On the positive side, no one else could possibly know what they want a business to look like better than the owner. And since doing the photography yourself allows for creative freedom, why not?

But you also may lack the expertise to fully nail photos that make your products look as best as possible. Though you may have a free photoshop app and a decent smartphone camera, there is more to business photography than point, shoot, and increase brightness.

Entrepreneurs always have a “can-do” attitude towards photography, which is a positive way to look at life. For this reason, we're going to give you some tips to help you nail photography for your business.

Following these tips will have your pictures looking like they were taken by a professional in no time. So, without further ado, let’s jump right into it!

 

How to take great photos without a professional camera

Though it is best, if possible to hire a professional photographer to nail photos for your business, it may not be as easy as that. Hopefully, these few tips we have provided will help you to get great images with good lighting that make your products look fantastic.

Check out our tips below.

1. Lights: natural light, the ring light, and more

Proper lighting matters a lot in photography. Taking pictures in a well-lit room can accentuate all the features of the picture and products. Studio lighting can be a very good option depending on what products you want to snap and where you want to post them on.

What kind of lights can you use?

Of course, all kinds of pictures can go on your Instagram story, so it’s no surprise that natural lighting alone is sufficient for those kinds of pictures. But if you want to take pictures for posters, handbills, billboards or e-commerce platforms, then you should use studio lighting.

There are lots of different kinds of light source items you can purchase for use in your home or office space which includes ring lights and white light sources, to enhance your photos without needing professional lighting equipment.

Natural light, like indirect sunlight, is suitable if you are taking pictures of common items like people or food, and if you're taking photos indoors, you should find a spot with good natural light. But if you want to take pictures of art, furniture, cars and the like, then studio-style lighting is your best option.

White Background To Get The Most Out Of Your Lighting

We all know that light bounces beautifully off of white surfaces. So, you want to utilize all that light to make sure that your products look their possible best.

Don't use coloured backgrounds as an alternative to white backgrounds or other neutral-coloured backgrounds. This would give off the same colour of light and it can be very frustrating to fix in post-production. Getting light right makes post-production editing much easier.

Be sure to use a white background for product pictures to accentuate the products. And even if you don't have a white background, you can change the background with a photo editing tool in post-production provided the background you use is very neutral.

 

2. Find The Best Angles And Focal Points

If you have any basic photography skills, then you’d know that angles have a lot to do with how well your pictures come out. When you’re taking pictures of your products, you want to make sure that you have pictures from every angle.

Doing this would allow you to have a variety of options when it is time to edit. It would also save you the stress of arranging your little studio setup to re-do the pictures. To crown it all, different angles of a product will allow the customer to paint a mental picture of the product they are buying.

If photographing clothing items on a model, have the model try out different poses to show the clothing item in different ways. Each pose should show something new about the product.

Know Your Focal Points

You might want to invest in a tripod for this. You need a steady and focused picture of your products, and to achieve that, tripods are key. With tripods, the issue of blurry photos from shaky hands is non-existent.

You can make use of the bokeh effect to draw the focus and attention of viewers to your products. The bokeh effect blurs out the background of an image and focuses on a particular part of the picture.

You can use the bokeh effect photos on social media or your company's website, as they are aesthetically pleasing. But for professional advert purposes, you might want to ditch the bokeh and try to get more focused images.

 

3. Learn To Edit Like A Pro

One of the things we can thank technology for is photo editing tools like Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Lightroom. These photography editing tools have made it much easier to beautify, remove unwanted things from our pictures, and accentuate the features of the picture in general.

You may need to take a photo editing course to be able to edit like a pro. Sure, photo editing can be simple when it has to do with mild adjustment and a few tweaks. But it can also be very difficult when dealing with more complex things like scar removal, complexion adjustments and many more.

Taking an editing class will allow you to be able to know how to use these photo editing tools. They help to simplify the difficult parts of photo editing. But for now, here are some photo editing pro-tips.

Don't Use Filters

When taking a picture, don't use filters or a filtered lens. What you want to do instead is to take the picture in natural light and then apply edits in post-production editing. Using filters while taking the pictures and not in post-production can be a nightmare for you when it's time to edit.

Play With The White Balance

When editing pictures, it is a good idea to play with the white balance a little. This should let you know if you want the pictures in warmer sunny shades or cooler shades that have hints of blue. You never know what shade would make your picture pop. Don't be afraid to mess with the white balance a little.

Make Colors Pop

Be sure to bring life to your colours! You can use your editing tools to make your pictures colourful by accentuating the colours a little bit more in the colour balance setting. Colours grab people's attention. So, make your images more appealing and eye-catching by taking the dull shade that a natural camera gives you and making it brighter.

4. Add Context When Taking Photos

This just means that you should include a little bit of storytelling into your pictures, especially if you are taking pictures of lifestyle products. You want to make sure that people know and understand what a product is to be used for.

Think about what you would want your target audience to do with the product and show it to them. Remember not to have a lot of clutter in the background and focus on your product rather than any props so that it doesn't send a wrong message across to the viewers.

Conclusion

A photograph is worth a thousand words and so your business images should communicate with your customers well. It is super easy to just point and shoot, but quality images take hard work, a good light source, and a few other pieces of equipment.

If you're taking your business photos yourself, take a look at these tips on composition, light, and detail to ensure you get the highest quality pictures for your business website.