If a picture is worth a thousand words, you want to ensure you’ve said the right thing.
With the advent of smartphone cameras and editing apps, everyone is a budding photographer. Unfortunately, self-proclaimed photographic brilliance doesn’t always yield the quality necessary for
Leave It to the Experts
Producing interesting, engaging product photos requires more than simply getting the item centered in the viewfinder. Good professional photographers have both significant training in their craft and a keen intuition honed in hundreds of shoots that helps them evaluate a number of criteria at a glance.
What’s the best angle for the shot? What color is best to have the item sitting on and in the background? Inside or outside shoot? Lighting from the left, right or above? What type of filter? And the list goes on. While using a professional photographer certainly costs more than taking pictures yourself, their expertise often proves priceless and saves you time.
Great Shot. So What?
There’s scientific proof that images affect human behavior. In fact, our existence is a direct result of this science – being able to quickly pick out the shape of a saber-toothed cat lurking in the weeds, identify it, and choose a response (run!) was fairly critical for our pre-historic ancestors.
While making purchases based on the photos on an e-commerce website doesn’t involve quite the same level of consequences, it nevertheless calls on that same powerful part of the brain. Have you ever been to a restaurant whose menu features poorly lit photos with washed out colors and no contrast? If you have, you may have noticed that you probably weren’t as hungry after perusing the menu as you were when you walked in. If bad imagery can ruin a meal, can you imagine what else it could ruin?
Touching with your Eyes
When it comes to enticing customers, companies in the e-commerce space are at a definite disadvantage as compared to brick-and-mortar businesses. People who shop online can only imagine what a product feels like. Their eyes must provide feedback normally produced by their hands and it must do so quickly.
For that reason, photos used in this kind of setting must have crystal clarity, vivid colors, the right amount of contrast, etc. Skimp on the photography, and you may be sending website visitors off to your competitors.