Lifestyle Photography for Handmade Business Owners

1. Introduction: Hi friends, I'm so excited to share this class with you. In this course, you will learn how to take a beautiful photo of your handmade product. It's crucial to take professional photos of your product and tell a story through your photos. This will help your customer visualize using your product in their homes. If this is your first time taking classes with me, hi I'm Prachi Singh. I'm owner of Prachi' Bohemian Art. I started my business in 2020 and within few months I got featured in a local magazine. I also get selected in a lot of reputable art shows and this was all possible because of my photography. As handmade business owner myself, I know how difficult it can be to compose a beautiful photo, and make your product look as beautiful as it is in person. That is why I started teaching photography. I focus on styling, choosing the correct props and background, and composing beautiful photo. In this course, we will learn how to choose props, background, and how to tell a story through your photos. We will do this by looking at various examples and taking photos of different handmade products, like handmade bag, handmade made, and a tumbler. The skills you will learn in this class will help you take amazing photos of your own handmade products. This course will help you systemize your photographic process. It will give you an idea about things you need to do before taking photos, and it will make your photographic process much more enjoyable. I hope you enjoy this class, let's get started [MUSIC]. 2. Project: [MUSIC] Before we start, I wanted to let you know that this course is a continuation of my first course, Instagram photography for a product-based business owner. In previous course I go to various concepts like branding, prop, and background selection, how the camera works, how to compose a beautiful photo, and how to edit them. I mostly focused on concepts that are relevant to handmade photography. Please make sure to check out my first course. If you watch my first course you know before taking photos, I find inspiration, make an inspiration board, and go on from there. For this class project, you will make an inspiration board filled with amazing photos of products similar to yours. For example, if you said jewelry, you can have an inspiration board filled with pretty jewelry photos. I explained how to search inspiration in third lesson of the last course, so please make sure to refer to that lesson. Next, you will figure out props and background by looking at your inspiration board and also from your knowledge of your customer's lifestyle. At the end, you will take a styled photo of your product. Once you finish the class project, please make sure to post it in the project gallery. Once you're done taking photos, you will know how to present your product in a style environment and you will get a feedback from me. You can also add your work in progress or a screenshot of your inspiration board in the project gallery. In the next lesson, we will take photo of a handmade bag. see you in the next lesson. 3. Photography of a Handmade Bag: [MUSIC] Welcome. In this lesson, we will take photo of this handmade crochet bag. If you've watched my previous course, you know before taking photos of your handmade product, you need to understand your customers and your brand. You need to make an inspiration board on Pinterest or Instagram, and you need to figure out what props and background you can use based on your inspiration board. I have saved some photographic inspiration for my background in my Pinterest board. As you can see from my Pinterest board, I really like to do style photography of bags, especially this pin. I think studio style photography once you know how to compose your photo, you will get faster in taking photos. Studio style photography is also very easy to reproduce. From my inspiration board, you can see I really like the monochromatic background. That's why I will use a simple cloth as a background. Keep in mind that the background should not clash with your product. At first, I was going to use this white simple cloth as background, but because my bag is made of cotton, the white cotton cloth will clash with my cotton bag. That is why instead of using cotton, I am going to use a certain cloth and it won't clash with the background, because these are different fabric. Another thing to notice from my pins is that I really like how the bags are elevated and they are standing out. They are placed on a box or a table. This separates the bag from the rest of the surrounding and it lets the viewer know that this bag is important in this photo. From this knowledge, we are going to decide our props and we are going to use this simple box to elevate our bag. Don't worry, I'm going to cover this box with a certain cloth. I'm going to use these flowers as a prop too, and I'm going to put these flowers in my bag while taking photo. This flower would add some colors in our photo. One thing to note is if your idle customers like certain kind of flowers, maybe dried flowers, pampas grass or hydrangea, make sure to use those flowers, because you are trying to promote the work to your ideal customers. Since my brand is a made up brand, I will assume that my customers like this kind of flowers. Now that we have decided on our props and background, let's start making our composition. As you can see, I am using my old window space to take my photos. The light falls on this side of the setup, so when I take photo, I'm not blocking the light. First, I will put the white cloth on the walls of this corner to make it very bright and reflective. Then I will put the box beneath everything to make a stadium. Then I will paste this statin cloth that we are really low. Before we take photos, few things to keep in mind. Try to take the photo in the daytime, because the light coming in will be white and not yellow or blue. If you take photo in early morning or late evening you might get real yellow or blue light, this will affect the color of your product. Cloudy days can be really good to take photos, because you get soft, diffuse light from the sky. Now that we are done with setting up, let's take photo. Remember to change the composition and try different angles. I love to put this bag at an angle because it adds depth to the photo, and in this case, it shows the knots of the bag perfectly. If the bag is placed flat, it doesn't really look good and it's not really satisfying to look at, as compared to the bag with an angle. To be honest, I like both of the photos. But I just feel like the right photo looks slightly better than the left one, because when you include an angle, it is more satisfying to look at and plus it has a bit more depth and it gives a three-dimensional feel to your photo or to your object. That's why I like putting objects at an angle while taking photo. Throughout my photography session, I keep my ISO at 100, F-stop is around 1.8-2, and I change my shutter speed to get a well-lit photo. Please refer to Chapter 6 and 7 of my previous course to understand how camera works and how to use the camera setting. Make sure to move around while taking photos and take photos at different angles, so that you will have more options to choose from and you will have high chances of getting a good photo. These are some of the photos from today shoot. As you can see, I like flowers on the other side and I do like bag at a diagonal angle instead of just straight. I really like this photo where you can see the handle is open and you can see flowers and they're like there's a movement involved in this photo, but I'm pretty happy with all of these photos. Well, I like this photo the most, because there is good amount of space between the bag and the corner edges of the photo. You can see the stadium or the box it is been placed on, and there is good amount of negative space on the top of the bag. There is basically breathing room around the bag and you can see the entire atmosphere, instead of the bag just cropped in. I like this photo because it's not completely at the center. It's lying on the 1/3 or the 2/3 of the photo. The bag is really relaxing to look at and it has good amount of breathing space, and that is why I think this is my best photo. After a few lessons, we will see how to edit these photos. In next lesson, we will take photo of a scrap. See you in next class. [MUSIC] 4. Photography of a Handmade Scrub: [MUSIC] Hi, welcome to this lesson. Today we are going to take photo of this scrub by Olive and Eve. The scrub is really good and it is made by my friend Heidi. This is her Instagram and if I had to guess her brand, I would say that it is inspired by nature. She and her customer probably like clean, simple aesthetic. After looking at her Instagram, I made an inspiration board for this brand. Most of the photos in this board have clean soft aesthetics with simple elements and props. You can see some similarities in the photos. In this spin the photographer used a mini stadium to elevate the product. This way, the product also stands out. In this pin, the photographer use fruits and herbs as props. These are probably ingredients of dilution. This is unique way to show what the product is made of. Checkout this pin. The photographer is using silky smooth satin as a background, and it probably shows that your skin is going to be silky smooth if you use this body polish. These are the takeaways from my Pinterest board. First, we can elevate our separate our scrub using a stadium. Second, we can use main ingredient as a prop. Third, we can tell a story that your skin will be silky smooth when you use our scrub. This is what I'm going to use as prop, lavender flowers. Since this scrub is a lavender scrub, it makes sense to use lavender as the main prop plus it also adds natural element to our photo. I will use this wavy train to showcase my product. This would elevate the product a bit and add interesting shape to our photo. I will use this set in cloth to add a soft look to our photo. Class, I will use this huge backdrop as a wall. I made this backdrop using a wood. I basically painted the wood and I watched a course about it. I will add the link to the course in the resource section. Now that we've figured out our props and background, let's start taking photos. First, I will place this backdrop near this wall. You can use a cheap brackets and clamps if you want to place the backdrop on a table. Next I will put a blanket and my satin cloth on the floor. I will add waves to it. This will give the photo a soft, luxurious feel. I will paste my tray. I will take the lavender and place it on the side of the tray. I like to place lavender on top of each other to hide the green stalk. I will place my script on the tray. I cannot put the script flat since this is a baby tray, I will use a lighter to balance the scrub on the tray. When you are composing a photo, you need to do some trial and error to figure out what looks good. Let's take some photos. I also like to move the product to a different angle. These are some of the photos. Heidi added as scoop with the package so we will show how the scrub looks like using this cooper. We will take some scrub and put it on the top. Let's take some photos [MUSIC] Now, let's put this scoop on the side and use it as a prop. This composition looks like a triangle plus odd number of elements in the photo is very satisfying to look at. These are some of the photos that I clicked [MUSIC]. I really like the photos that we clicked today. In two next lesson, we will start editing our photos, and in next lesson we are going to take photos of a tumbler. See you in next class [MUSIC]. 5. Photography of a Handmade Tumbler: [MUSIC] Welcome to this lesson. Today we will take photo of this handmade tumbler. For this tumbler, I imagine my ideal customer is a reader, a tea drinker, and she loves autumn and fall. I saved some photos on my Instagram for this photoshoot and some of the images the photographer used a coaster to elevate and separate the mug. This way, your eyes falls on the mug. They have also elevated mugs using books or a sweater. The use of books as props help the viewer imagine drinking from the mug while reading a book. I love to use the flowers as props. I think this gives the photo a very cozy vibe. These are the takeaways from my saved images. I know my customer reads books, so it makes sense to use books as props. I can use multiple book and create a layer. One thing to note is that cover of the book matters. If the cover has a lot of texture or images, it might clash with our product, that is mug. That's why it's better to use a book with a mono-color cover. I'm going to add some natural elements to our photo by using magnolia leaves. The backside of the leaf matches with our book cover so it will make the photo look cohesive. Some people use the leaves as bookmark, so this will help us to add in our story. I might use these flowers and flower pot in the background just to create a vibe. Like in some of the Instagram photos we looked at, I want to use a coaster to show that our tumbler is the main object because I did not have a wooden coaster laying around, I just made this crochet duet coaster and the color of the coaster will match with rest of the props that we're using, so it will make our photo look a bit more cohesive. For background, we will use our fake wall that I showcased in last video and this cozy blanket to just add coziness in our photo. Now that we have our props and background figured out, let's start styling. First, I will put my background, then I will place my cozy blanket on the floor. Next, I will place my books on my blanket. I usually put books at an angle to create depth. I will put my flowers in the corner, I will put the magnolia leaves at the edge of the book, I will place my coaster on my books, then I will put my mug with tea in it on the coaster. I also added a book in the background to create an atmosphere. Now, we're ready to take some photos. These are some of the photos. These are some of the close-up shots. Next lesson, we are going to edit all of our photos. See you in next class [MUSIC]. 6. Editing in Camera Raw: Are you guys excited to edit some photos? Before we start, I hope you guys watched my first course, especially the ninth lesson of this course. In this lesson I go through a lot of depth on how to edit photos and what all the setting mean. Please make sure to watch the ninth lesson of this course. If you watch the course you know that I use Camera Raw to edit all of my photos. I will select all the photos and open them up. All of my photos shows up like this. Sorry to be a broken record, but I hope you guys watched the ninth lesson of the first course because I go into great depth explaining all the concepts, like profile correction, chromatic aberration. In this lesson I will show you guys how I edit my photos and the reason behind each of my action. First we will read our photos. I did not like how the flower are on this side of the bag. I like the flower better on the other side of the scarf, the opposite side of the scarf. Plus I like the background better in this photo. I will give it a five-star. I don't like how the bag is placed in this photo, so I will give it three-star. Now I will rate everything. In these photos what I am looking at is if there is enough space around our project, we are going to crop our photo. You want to make sure that we include most of the elements and detail in the frame. After rating we are going to filter our rating and edit the photos that we like the most. Now we will click the Filter button, Star Rating, and then five stars. These are the photos that we like. I'm going to edit a few footage to show you guys my process. First I will crop the image. I will use 4 is to 5 ratio for this photo. I think Instagram allows photos with a 4 is to 5 ratio. First I will make sure that there is enough space at the edges of the photo. It's also good if your elements are on the four points. In this case the three points in our photo. This will ensure that your eyes falls on those elements and that you have a good composition. First we will do profile correction and remove chromatic aberration. It will remove distortion and fringing from our photos. Now we will do some basic correction. If you are taking photos during the daytime, you won't have a weird white balance issue. But if you take photos in early morning or late evening, your photo will be either too blue or too yellow. If your white balance is messed up you can drag this slider to fix it. I will start making basic correction just to see what looks good. I will increase the highlight, brighten up the shadow. I may darken up the black to create a contrast. I rarely touch exposure, because if you increase exposure it will brighten up all the pixels and you will lose details. If you want to increase the brightness in the photo, use highlights and white and not exposure. If you think your photos are too exposed, you can reduce the exposure. I will increase the contrast a bit. Texture increases the texture in the photo. Clarity makes the photo look contrasted. I usually increase clarity just a bit. Vibrance increases the intensity of dull colors in our photo. I increase vibrance by a small amount. I explained the curved section a lot more in depth in last course, please check the ninth lesson of my last course. Basically when you make changes in the curve you make changes in different region of your photo. Like right now I'm darkening the shadow region. This is a midtone region. This is highlights and this is pure whites. I am making S-curve. S-curve make sures that your photo looks contrasted. You don't need to make a perfect S-curve, you can change it as you wish. If you click on Details, you might see sharpening like this. You need to click this button to see the drop-down. Here you can choose the area that you want to sharpen. We're going to click Option, and hold down the masking key. Then you're going to drag that key and select the area that you want to sharpen. After selecting the area you can increase sharpening. If you have a lot of noise in your photo you can use noise reduction. I usually don't have noise because I keep my ISO at 100 and take photo during the daytime. The color mixer, I will just use luminance. I don't need to increase the saturation of any color in the photo. When you move the slider you can see how certain colors will get brighten or darken. I like the bright rose better. I will just play around in the color mixer section for a while. In color grading you actually add colors in different regions, like shadow, highlights, and midtones. It creates a vibe, but I like to be conservative while adding colors in these areas. Because if you add too much color you will change the color of your product. We don't want to change the color of our product, we want it to be true to its color. You can use this slider to either darken the shadow or brighten the shadow. I like to darken the shadow to add contrast. I don't play with mid-tone because it makes my product look weird and have different color, so I'm not going to touch the mid-tone section. Now I will go back to basics and make some changes. I think this photo looks good, this is before and after. I will go ahead and edit some scrap photos. I love this photo and I will edit this. I was trying 4 is to 5, but I think 1 is to 1 would look better because you will include a lot more elements in the frame when you use 1 is to 1 ratio. As you can see, this crop looks good. Now we are done cropping the photo, we will start editing our photo. First I will do profile correction and removed chromatic aberration. In this photo I will play with saturation. If I increase the orange saturation it will increase the intensity of the background color, and it won't change our script photo by that much. I can play around with saturation in this photo. But if our product was an earring or a painting, I wouldn't change the saturation because that will affect the color of our product. If you've watched my previous course, you know that I use this technique where I increase the saturation to a certain color, move it around to see which color works well with the photo, and then I reduce the saturation to 1 or 2. I will do the same thing with highlights. This is before and after, it looks cute, and I will just move the jar just a bit. I love the rays in the background, and you can see this scrub and the shine on it. I like everything in this photo. I really like this photo. This is how I edit my photos. I can copy the edit settings and paste them to other photos. You can make some changes after pasting the edits. If this was the main product photo, I would put all the four points on our product so that your viewer can see the product even if it's a small thumbnail. This would be a good Instagram image because all the elements are on the four points and that makes the composition look good. Now we will edit our Tumblr photo. Let me select the photo that I like the most. I think I will edit this photo because you have all the elements in the background and you know it will be in the frame when you crop the photo out. I will use 1 is to 1 ratio to include everything in the frame. I tried my best to make sure that the book is in the photo, and its corners, and not cropped out. Even if its corners was cropped out, that's completely okay because our main element is Tumblr. I will make sure that Tumblr falls on this line. Now I wouldn't make color grading changes to my photo because that will change the color of the glaze, and I don't want to do that, I think this photo looks good as it is. This is how I edit my photos. I hope this is helpful. See you in the next lesson. 7. You did amazing!: Congratulations on finishing this course. Just to recap, we went to various example and we took photos of a handmade bag, a scrub, and a mug. We understood how to select props and background by understanding our inspiration and customer profile. We learn how to tell a story through photos and how to make viewer connect with your product through your photos. Please make sure to add your project or your work in progress in the project gallery so that we all can take a look and review it. One piece of advice that I want to give you is that it's okay if you don't take a perfect photo the first time, the more you practice, the more you are going to get better. Please leave a feedback if you like this course. Also do follow me so that you will get notified when I make another class. Thank you again. See you soon. [MUSIC]