Cleveland commercial product photographer captures industrial ceramics…

I couldn’t even begin to remember how many times I’ve had people reach out, tell me how awesome their product is, what it can do, how it’s going to change the industry… and then in some round-about way, tell me how ugly it is.

All too often, there’s not a lot of “weight” put on photographing a product that most people would find boring or unattractive… especially if the people that manufacture it always see it as boring or unattractive. Those products are usually handed over with the note - “We just need a shot of this for [reason here]. You don’t need to spend a lot of time on it”. I guess the point I’m trying to make is that if you don’t care that much about it, what makes you think you’re customer will? Reaching your target audience is one thing, getting them exited to spend money with you is another.

The three ceramic ball are a great example. In most cases, they would be given very little importance in the photo shoot. They are an item that is usually purchased in bulk, used for a specific purpose, most customers purchasing them don’t care what they look like and there really isn’t much to them visually. But here’s the thing… if you have ten great images of your products and one or two that were done quick & dirty, which one(s) do you think people will remember? You know the answer!

When I was handed the three ceramic balls, my first thought was to keep the look clean, uncomplicated, consistent with the other product shots we had done and make sure your focus was always on the ceramic balls. This also included having some visually attractive placement. While most photographers in the past have captured these on a black, blue or gray backgrounds, I decided to go way left of center and do a white on white theme (which really wasn’t being done at the time… at least not very well). It was a gutsy move, but paid off in the end.