Photography

How To Strategically Photograph Your Bags For the Artisan Maker

Frequently I am asked about how I do my bag images.  To that end I am sharing some of my strategies for creatively talking better photos of your bags. These techniques are used by professionally trained photographers, but they can easily be followed by anyone who wants to apply them.

They focus on the types of approaches you can leverage depending on what you want your images to say about your brand and the bag (product) itself. This does not provide technical instruction on how to use photo-editing software because that is a whole other subject (e.g how to remove a background or add a watermark). Not everyone is interested in spending time with complicated software like Photoshop. (There are mobile apps you can use, and I've listed one I know works well.)

Rather this focuses on how to initially capture a better image right out of your camera or camera-phone. Because I personally believe this is THE most important first step. Regardless of the software you use to edit your images, if you don't start off with a good image to begin with, there is usually no amount of editing that will take your image to where it can optimally go. 

It is my hope you find this useful. And if you take away only one tip that will contribute to an image being better for you, it will have been worth my time to write it up. 

P.S. Excuse any typos. When I have more time I will proof this document.

 

DOWNLOAD PDF:  "Tips to Strategically Photography Your Bags" - An Opinion

In Closing

I want to admit that I am a trained fine-art photographer. I studied photography for years at The International Center of Photography in New York and my landscape photos have been exhibited in group shows in New York galleries. But you don't need to be a professional photographer to leverage some of these concepts that pro's know. Anyone can follow them if they have the interest. Even though I have a professional Nikon camera and lots of pro equipment, I USE MY IPHONE 100% of the time to take my bag images!  

As for editing, while you may not get exactly the same result with a mobile app than you might with Photoshop, you can get VERY ACCEPTABLY CLOSE...just  take a bit of time to play with some of the apps out there.