The Unpopular Truth About Product Photography | #18

You’re already good enough to take client product photos. In fact, if you are trying to become the best product photographer out there, it will hinder your business.

Becoming the best means that you’ll want to work with the Red Bulls and Coca Colas of the world. The problem is they already have photographers and have a well-connected network of creatives to tap into. If you want to get into this network, it takes years and years of practice and connecting.

You don’t need these complex 3-4 light setups, reflectors, or merging multiple images in photoshop. Yes, your photos will look cool, but you’re wasting your time. A complex photo will take 2 hours to shoot, a simple (but great) one will take 20 minutes.

If you are trying to land clients with smaller budgets, you need to match the photos you are delivering to that budget. Now I’m not saying to take mediocre photos, far from it. You still need to take amazing photos, but those photos can be taken with simple 1 light setups with minimum photoshop.

These photos still look amazing, but they don’t take you much time, meaning you are able to take on smaller budgets. You work fast with these small budgets, so you can crank out a lot of projects and still be happy with the results.

Instead of focusing on the whale clients that have fierce competition around them, go after the smaller clients with less competition. You’ll be able to do what you love, deliver great assets, and make money doing it.