How Advertising Photographers Are Like Story Writers

In one very important respect advertising photographers are not all that dissimilar to writers of stories and books. A good writer will include a definite beginning, a middle and an end in every story. This is of course greatly simplifying the process, but any story will have a beginning section where foundations, introductions and preparations are made, a middle where the meat of the story is developed, and an ending where everything is wrapped up.

Advertising photographers need to work in this same way too, although often many small businesses trying to cut costs and save money by taking their own product images in house miss at least one, and often two of the three stages necessary to achieve success. It's a false economy to take product photographs in house because you'll be missing out on the huge array of benefits which will be on offer in professional studios and with the professional and creative insight of an experience photographer.

By including images of a poorer quality businesses will be missing out on attracting interest from consumers. Standing out through quality images has never been more important, which is why investing in quality product photographs and images is crucial. So what are the three stages which a professional advertising photographer will go through in order to create a professional, effective marketing image?

The first stage is preparation. This will depend upon the nature of the product of course, but there will always be some preparation needed. If you're taking an image of a diamond bracelet then you could just dump it on a table and take a picture of it. Or you could bring in a model, along with hair and makeup professionals, hire a location or build and furnish a suitable set or background, and include the lighting needed to make the diamonds sparkle and glow, rather than just looking like lumps of glass.

Professional photographers will have a huge list of contacts which will make it possible to bring all this together. This is the preparation, and it's often impossible for amateur photographers or those doing product images in house for small businesses to achieve. The second stage is the photography itself. This is rarely a case of simply pointing the camera at the product and taking a picture. Small adjustments, technical configurations, alternative solutions, tricks, tips and lighting tweaks will all be necessary, with the advertising photographer often able to see things in ways which most people don't. Being able to make creative and technical decisions on the fly is a skill that also requires years of experience - something else which most in house photographers can't have.

Finally, there's the post production element. Increasingly today, whether from the point of view of creativity or simply cost it is necessary to edit the photograph afterwards using advanced tools and graphic editing packages. This could be simply a case of adjusting light levels, removing unwanted elements such as supporting wires, or adding in elements which would have been impossible to include at the time. It might even be a case of taking the product image and superimposing it on a totally different background, which may well be a cheaper way of achieving the end result than going to the location itself.

These three stages are all essential in helping to achieve a high quality product image which will catch the eye and help sell the product. It might all sound very expensive, but small businesses would do well to look into the prices offered by professional advertising photographers as the long term gain is almost always worth the short term investment.

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