WE’VE BEEN SHOOTING ARIES’ E-COMMERCE PHOTOGRAPHY SINCE 2015 IN RORY GULLAN’S FIRST STUDIO IN BOXPARK SHOREDITCH. AS BRANDS DEVELOP AND CHANGE, SO DOES THE STYLE OF PHOTOGRAPHY, AND IN 2019 WE WORKED WITH THEM TO PRODUCE TWO MAJOR DEVELOPMENTS.

FIRSTLY, AN OVERHAUL TO THEIR E-COMMERCE PHOTOGRAPHY STYLE TO PRODUCE IMAGERY THAT MORE ACCURATELY REFLECTS THE BRAND TODAY.

Secondly, in-house studio setup and training; Aries still use our studio for all their e-commerce photography, but like many clients on the rare occasion have the need to shoot only one or two products due to manufacturing delays or sample changes. What this means is that when time is a factor, the in-house team can shoot and edit the extra product as a last resort.

Since you’re here, the mention of quick turnaround brings up an opportunity for another case study, also for Aries, whereby we had a last minute request for 150 products with a lead time of 3 days. All products were received, shot, returned and edited in 2 days. We have to shout about that one, don’t we?

With the two developments it was important to understand the effect of the new photography style on the in-house photography; we had an agreed style for the product photography, so whatever new setup was used to achieve this would have to take space into consideration. Although Studio Rogue is a large production studio, the setup would also allow an e-commerce photoshoot in a 3x3m area in Aries’ offices. Rory Gullan’s past experience in managing multiple studios across Europe comes into play here. Essentially - maintaining consistent, high quality regardless of when and were the products are photographed and edited.

“...we had a last minute request for 150 products with a lead time of 3 days. All products were received, shot, returned and edited in 2 days.”

Whenever we have a new or existing client wanting a new product photography style, sometimes this will require us creating something completely from scratch, but often we’ll be given example images by the client. Our responsibility as a studio is to take the inspiration we’ve been given for a photography style and work it into a solution specific and unique to the client, because we will always aim to make improvements and produce imagery reflective of the brand.

There’s no denying it, product photography is not as exciting as many other types of imagery, but there’s a lot going on underneath the surface. Products need to be accurately represented, consistent in style, alignment, lighting and colour; the importance of product photography in e-commerce is that while website conversions are important, returns due to misleading imagery have more serious implications.

The new product photography style moved from a much more ‘pristine’ style to one allowing more movement in the products, with a harder light picking up the textures, particularly in denims which are a major part of the Aries collections:

If you’re interested in hearing about our product photography services, or are looking for a solution for in-house photography or training, get in touch with us today and let’s have a coffee and a chat.