Whether you are a large company or a sole trader your business needs marketing of one kind or another. Business photography done well is a highly effective marketing method that will set you apart from the competition and project an instant and readily understood message of quality and credibility to prospective customers.
Business photography can involve shooting photographs outdoors, such as site buildings and offices, or indoors for product photography or staff portraits. I’ve done all of these things across a very broad range of industries and environments! Factory products large or small, and members of staff can be photographed by bringing the items or people to a static studio, or on location using a portable studio. Often the latter is much preferable for obvious reasons, but crucially it achieves the same results. I have all the equipment – lights, stands and backgrounds – necessary to create the look of a professional studio while working on location.
It’s all about the light
Shooting on location presents a number of challenges for the photographer, not least in terms of the light: business sites can be very poorly lit, and if I’m working outside I’m at the mercy of the changing weather. Although you may think your product is the most important element in the photo in fact it is the light: light defines and describes the subject and good lighting (either natural or artificial) enhances the subject and separates it from the background. To this end I use a range of techniques, including portable flash, umbrellas and reflectors to modify the lighting in any environment.
Balinese Massage and Reiki Therapy service – Business photography
As an example, I recently photographed for a small business run by Maria, who offers a massage and therapy service. She needed some professional business photographs for her website and after discussion we agreed to carry out the shoot in the spare room of her own home. She provided a model for the session and I set up my lighting and background. She had a very clear idea of the kind of business photographs she needed for her site and so after a brief discussion the shoot went very smoothly.
HTS Industrial, temporary buildings: Industrial photography
In the past few months I’ve produced commercial, business and industrial photography for a whole range of companies, including a number of site visits to shoot temporary storage buildings. These are not the most glamorous of structures but it’s my job to capture them in the best light possible in order to promote the business. They present a number of challenges as they are almost always in use with fork lift trucks moving about, and have often been fitted into a very tight space on an existing factory site, so they can be difficult to capture in a single shot. I always try to capture images of the building from a variety of angles so it’s important to have a range of wide-angle and telephoto lenses available. Where possible I walk all round the building in order to discover the best angle to view, even being hoisted up in the air on a cherry-picker!
Clowes Developments – Corporate photography
Another recent business photography shoot involved photographing the board of directors of CWC property development company. Because they are based all across the UK the only opportunity to photograph the entire group was during their annual meeting at company HQ. Once they’d finished their lunch I set up my photography studio in the dining area and photographed each member of staff individually against a white background, with the intention of combining the individual photos into a group shot later. I also managed to capture some more informal shots of the directors on the lawn outside the impressive facade of Brailsford Hall.
HW Martin Waste Disposal – Industrial photography
H W Martin manage waste disposal and recycling for local authorities across the UK. They contacted me because they required a complete update of their website, including documentation of the complete chain of events from bin collection through sorting, processing and output of the final “product”. I spent two days visiting a number of sites in Derbyshire and Yorkshire in order to capture the whole process. Business photography in this case involved a lot of leg work photographing vast mountains of glass, plastic and paper inside dimly lit warehouses, peering into the machines that sort and clean the various materials, photographing staff at work, and finally producing professional photos of the “products”: large bales of plastic, aluminium, steel, paper and textiles, and samples of the different grades of glass and plastic churned out by the sorting machines.
To find out more you can view my industrial portfolio here or call me today on 07709 269577.
