The 4 Things you should be doing to improve your photos...now!

Are you happy with your Etsy shop photos?

Maybe you are frustrated that you have a great product, but feel like potential customers aren't able seeing how awesome it is from your photos?

Are you ready to do something about it? (Hint: answer yes)




Taking good photos of your product can seem intimidating, but it doesn't have to be. You might think of things like "light box", "tripod", "SLR", etc. that make it seem like some expensive, difficult process. And chances are, unless you're a photographer, you probably would rather be spending your time on your crafty business, not taking a million shots with a cramped back and editing them for hours.

That's how I feel, at least.

BUT, good news. It doesn't have to be a chore, and there are plenty of ways to take good photos that communicate your brand and your product to your customers. And they are wicked cheap and easy.

Ready? Good, let's go!

Before you even pick up a camera, take a moment to think about how you want your product (brand) to come across to your customers. It may help to think about who your customers are, or who you want to attract. Write down at LEAST five descriptive words that communicate how you want to your product to come across. This is what I wrote down for mine:

Romantic
Nostalgic
Simple
Rustic
Airy
Sweet

Ok, you have your words now, good! How are you going to make those words come alive in your product photography? There are four ways:

1. Background
2. Props
3. Light
4. Crop (framing)


Background
1. Let's start with background. Less is almost always more. A clean, simple background provides the best backdrop to show off your awesome product. I went to the craft store and raided their scrap-booking section looking for nice paper to use. Keep your words in mind! Here are the papers I bought using my words:



You certainly don't have to use paper, though. Depending on your words, maybe you could use some lace fabric, or the wood on your porch. If you feel comfortable, try using a couple of different backgrounds throughout your shop to achieve an varied, yet cohesive, look.



Props
2. I think props have the potential to be really intimidating to people (they were for me anyway!), and they also have the potential to go really wrong, really fast. The advice of style icon Coco Chanel comes to mind: "Always take off the last thing you put on". If you find yourself stacking up books, draping them with fabric, propping up a picture frame against them, and sprinkling the whole thing with glitter, Stop!

Take a step back and look at the list of words you made. What is one thing that would match one or more of those words? I had the words "nostalgic" and "rustic" so I found an old, gray, hardback book from the turn of the century and draped my necklace over it. That's it! No glitter needed.



You totally don't need props, but I think they do add some visual interest to a shop page. So try experimenting with a couple of different items and maybe use one for every 1 in 5 photos or so. You can also use them for your secondary photos in your listings.



Light
3. Light. Light. Light. Light can be so tricky. It can be your best friend or your worst enemy. Have you ever seen those gorgeous, back-lit photos of a bride traipsing through a field with an ethereal glow emanating from her radiant hair? Yeah, I don't know how to do that. BUT, with a little practice I've been able to at least make my photos bright, clear, and I think somewhat pretty. You can too.

I don't want to hear about how you have no room to do this in your house, or you have the worst light in the world in your apartment. Because I have a small apartment that is somehow situated so that the sun never shines here. So if I can do this, I PROMISE you can too.

Find a little space next to a window. Push a table up against it. Bam. You've got all the light you're going to need. I used this stellar little photo shoot tutorial to get me started. You should check it out too, right now. I'll wait.

This is my little set up. All told I spent less than $5 to do it. And most of that was for the tracing paper on the window.




I like to shoot in the mornings, because that is as close as the sun likes to show it's face around here. I also bump up the ISO setting on my camera. (I'm not even going to get into camera settings here, because I am no camera expert, and I have no idea what settings are where on different cameras. I do suggest Googling your camera and finding a tutorial on YouTube.)



Crop
4. Maybe you have an amazing eye for composition, and are able to effortlessly snap off a perfect shot of your product. I can't. Even if that's you, chances are you're going to have to resize your photo for Etsy's parameters. Try cropping your photo in a couple of different ways and comparing them. Where is your eye drawn in the picture? What shows your product off the best? If possible, try to keep the scale of your product consistent across your photos!





After you've got the essentials down, don't be shy about trying out some photo editors. Even with the perfect light conditions and best camera out there, you will probably have to do a little fiddling to get your photo to look just like the real thing. I like Picasa (free to download), and Picmonkey.com (free to use online). Just try not to go overboard with editing; your customers deserve to see an accurate representation of your product.



Phew, that wasn't so bad, right? By no means do I think I have reached the best potential with my photos, but you can definitely see the improvement! Half the battle is just stepping back and making a game plan for your photography.

So what do you think? Do you have any other tips or tricks for taking great photos? I'd love to hear them. If you try out some of these, I hope that you will share your results! Just leave a comment below!