Professional Product Photography of Outerwear for your Online Store
Outerwear can indicate a person's status, the nature of his or her occupation and even be part of an evening dress. Photos for the goods available on online stores should be taken, taking into account all these nuances. So, in this article we want to tell you how to get started with professional product photography that showcases outwear in a manner that is suitable for a virtual store and will help your business thrive.
Let's give the definition of outerwear. Outerwear is a bulk group of clothing, also known as a "class". Its function is to protect the human body from the negative effects of poor weather. Outerwear prevents atmospheric moisture – rain and snow - from making contact with the wearer’s body. It is wind resistant and also acts as a thermal insulation barrier. This class of clothing includes jackets, sweaters, coats, parkas, fur coats, ponchos and their various modifications.
Recently, sports outerwear has become very popular, especially among residents of Northern countries. Sports outerwear is bought by ordinary city dwellers much more often than it is by athletes. This article will be of interest not only to those who are going to sell outerwear, but also to the owners of online sports stores.
How to Shoot Professional Product Photography for a Catalogue?
Professional product photography for commercial catalogs sometimes takes effort. It can be a real challenge in terms of both knowledge and skills. Often, one picture per product is not enough – generally, every product is shown from different sides and includes 5-6 different photos: front, back, ¾ view, photo of the garment on the model, photo without a face, etc. If you take photos of outwear, this is especially important because it is often voluminous, which makes it important for the buyer to see how it will look on a live person or even a mannequin, and not just folded. Tabletop photography is also used to create outerwear catalogs.
How to Take Tabletop Photography of Outwear
The simplest approach is to photograph things folded or unfolded on a flat surface. Shooting clothes in unfolded or folded form imposes technical restrictions on the process. When taking tabletop photography from top to bottom, the camera should be held on a horizontal rod attached to a tripod. For safety reasons, do not raise the camera too high. If the product occupies a large area and the camera is close to it, there is a high probability of the framing looking off, or otherwise unprofessional. Therefore, when taking pictures of large outwear garments, you should raise the camera to a height of 2 - 2.5 meters and stand, using a low ladder to look through the viewfinder. Difficulties like these can be avoided. Our studio in Toronto has special, comfortable, high-tech photo machines that can be rented for the whole day. The horizontal machine for flat-lay photography is the best option. For further information follow this link.
Product Videography With Models
If you are creating a commercial catalogue in a digital format, you should definitely use product videography with a live model. Just imagine how cool it would be: a model in a poncho comes out on a white background, poses, and spins – all with a smile.
According to marketing experts, it is video content that raises the conversion rates of online stores. People are spending more time watching videos than they are looking at photographs these days. Almost every brand in the world wants to, does, or has plans to work with videos. Photography used to be something revolutionary, but now it's time for video. In some online stores using product videography, models even dance for the camera, showing off their personalities as well as the clothing. This gives the buyer an idea of how the clothes will look on them. Based on the model, buyers can also gauge how a given piece will look on someone with their hair type, skin tone, or body shape.
In addition, search engines tend to favour sites with videography. The presence of videos in an online store has a positive effect on the ranking the site has within results. Also, the video itself can appear separately in the first lines of a search engine, thus bringing customers to your online store directly. This could be, for example, a video with jackets from Philipp Plein or Bogner. If its written description and title are optimized for search queries, the video has a higher chance of appearing on the first page of search results.
How to Shoot with a Model or Mannequin
Photos that demonstrate clothes on a model or a mannequin are more effective than photos of “abstract” things. To buyers, they look more attractive.
Lighting up full-height human figures, regardless of where they are a model or a mannequin, requires extensive light sources such as a softbox or oversized umbrellas. To highlight the shadows - as a source of fill light - you need to use a smaller umbrella and also attach it to a pulsed light source. Why pulsed sources? To "freeze" any movement of the model.
The key light source should be placed to the left of the camera, at a 45-degree angle to the model, at a height at which the center of the umbrella is approximately at the level of the model's shoulders. The purpose of this source is to illuminate clothing as evenly and softly as possible.
The fill light should be at a lower height and to the side of the model. Its pulse power should be less than the pulse power of the first source. Otherwise, instead of diluting the deep shadows, the model's voluminous body will be drawn flat. Accordingly, take either low-power monoblock as a fill light source, or set a lower pulse power. Alternatively, you could both.
Find the distance of the model from the background so that both the background and the model are illuminated to roughly the same extent. The large emitting area of the key light source plays an important role. The larger the area, the softer the light. Therefore, huge soft-boxes (2 x 2.5 meters) or large umbrellas will not be superfluous. The quality of the lighting they create is about the same. Huge soft-boxes are less comfortable than umbrellas. The latter are cheaper and easier and faster to fold, unfold, and transport.
A condition of shooting with pulsed light sources is the need to synchronize the pulse with the shutter release. You will need a radio sync kit and a camera with a hot shoe to which you can attach a transmitter from such a kit. However, the benefits of pulsed light will outweigh this minor inconvenience if you are photographing clothing on a model or full-height mannequin.
Nuances of Outerwear Photography On a Full-Height Mannequin
If you are planning to take photos of your clothes on a mannequin, then you should choose one that matches the general aesthetic of the clothes being photographed.
A quality wig will make the mannequin look more like a live model, which will make the clothes look better. Switching wigs occasionally will give the clothing different looks and vibes based on the style of the wig.
Remember, putting clothes on a mannequin is laborious. You will have to detach the arms and legs of the mannequin to change products. It takes a lot of time—especially if you have more than one mannequin to dress and undress or more than one set of clothes to photograph! Therefore, do not use a mannequin if you’ve never tried dressing and undressing one before or if you have strict deadlines, as you may end up missing your deadline due to how long the process takes.
Modern Photo Studio in Toronto. Product Photography for Your Online Store with Creative Approach
We do all of the above in our photography studio in Toronto. Product photography, high quality videography and tabletop photography are tasks completed by real professionals. You can also order creative photos for an online store, which can be placed not only in the catalogue, but also on the main page of your site via a banner. It can be a photograph of a single model or a photograph of a group of people, which will become a real masterpiece of art and will capture your customers' interest, inspire positive emotions, and increase their desire to buy your products.
Creative Banner for Your Website
In our studio, you can order grandiose photographs that are a real work of art. Such photographs can also be used both as banners on the site, and as the main images for a new line of outerwear for paper and digital catalogues. What are the main rules we adhere to when making a photo for a banner?
- Determine what emotion (memories) we want to evoke in a person. What should he think of when looking at this photo? For photos from an outerwear store, it could be a family spending time outdoors in winter or autumn, dressed in your store's outerwear. The emotion and memories that we evoke are family warmth, the warmth of a home, and a vacation for the whole family.
- We use certain colours. If we shoot a banner for a lingerie store, it will be made up of passionate shades of reds or soft colours such as pink and pastels. Since this is more of a family theme, white (the colour of snow) is just right. In the subconscious of one’s mind, white is associated with positivity and purity.
- Work with models. When we take a photo of a family playing in the snow, we do not force the models into certain positions. The more relaxed they feel, the more natural they look in the photographs. This leads to better photos and better outcomes for the store.
- We take a lot of pictures and then select a few of the best ones to be processed using specialized software.
If you are interested in what we offer, please call us or email. Our specialists will answer all your questions as soon as possible.