#121: The Secrets To Great Product Photography

Unknown Speaker  0:02  

Hey everyone, it’s Norman Farrar, aka the beard guy here and welcome to another lunch with norm the rise of the micro brands mantra.

Unknown Speaker  0:20  

All right, well, today we’re hoping we’re gonna have product photographer Taylor Boonen. Taylor is a professional photographer and she tells story through her lens. However, we’re having some technical problems, so I don’t know what’s gonna happen. Usually I would be in the fetal position by now, but Kelsey says everything’s gonna be alright. It’s gonna be all right. Where are your kills?

Unknown Speaker  0:46  

Answer, right. Just like Bob Marley always says, everything’s gonna be alright. Welcome everyone. Welcome, Mark. Moshe. I believe that’s Marina. Welcome. And yeah, so we got a few fun things going on. Daniel from Brazil, welcome. It’s always good to see you. Yeah, let us know where you’re from. Where you’re watching from. It’s always great to see where in the world our beer nation I got this new term. I thought it was because of Marsha a little bit but beard buddies. I think that was, yeah, I misread one of Marsha’s comments the one time and sub beard buddies. And I think it’s really cute. We got we’re, we’re all a bunch of beard buddies. But yeah, Welcome, everyone. Get those. Smash those like buttons? If you haven’t already subscribed to our YouTube channel. So if you’re watching on a replay, that’s you. Subscribe. Hit that button. Ring that bell. Let me see we got we do have a price today. Taylor is having some technical issues, but we’re hoping she’s able to get around it. But we’ll see. But in the meantime, if you guys have any questions at all, for the beard guy or for me, you can put it in the comment section and we’d be happy to answer your questions. Looks like we got England from Simon. I got to check my Facebook group. But yeah, how’s everyone still

Unknown Speaker  2:14  

until Taylor comes on? Why don’t we just do an improv here? Does anybody want to come on live and ask them questions? What the hell are you?

Unknown Speaker  2:25  

Sorry, as joining the group. I want to make sure we got everyone. Okay, so we got Clyde from Scotland. There we go. Nice. Yarrow. Hashtag beard buddies. Let’s do it.

Unknown Speaker  2:37  

Okay, remember, we do have a question from Dr. Cause. What is norms daily routine? Okay, we can start there. So, and we could talk about productivity today, if you like, one of the things that I tried to do. I’ve done this for years. I don’t know where I learned this from. But it is to start the night before. So before I go to bed, Kelsey knows this. I’m up late. But before I go to bed, I always make sure that I have my day planned for the next day. Now, whether that happens or not, that’s a whole different story. But I usually try to take you know, 20 minutes to half hour to figure it out. Maybe it doesn’t take that long. But I use Google Calendar. I’ll go over and I’ll just plot it out and any anywhere from the I’ll have somebody VA that goes into my inbox at night and sorts all my email. So they’ll come in and they’ll see like all the spam email or if they’re not sure, there’s all there’s a legend of colors. So if I see a purple question mark, okay, we don’t know what that is. I have to take a look at it. But we’ll either go through and we’ll see whether it’s something that can wait. We have red stars, we have red exclamation marks, which is urgent. Red is red stars important. red exclamation mark is urgent, important. Those are the ones I gotta get on for sure. But anyways, the bills are green, and if they’re paid, they have a green exclamation mark. There’s a whole series. Anyways, they go through it, there’s one lady does. And then at eight o’clock, she meets up with an executive assistant that kind of takes over at that point. they’d spend about 15 minutes together, maybe a half hour then I get on at 830 kind of go through everything. So My day starts at 830 spend a half hour with an EA and just kind of plan everything. Next thing I’ll do is go through my priority. So it’s top priority, whatever that is, it gets done. I try to turn off as much communication as possible. That’s what the executive assistant is for. So I’ll turn off using typically it’s freedom.io or we use France and France is fr a NZ, and it’s uh, I think Victor Victor’s on I think I saw, I think I saw, um, anyways, I think he uses it as well. But it’s a communication tool, which channels everything, you know how much distraction there is, in your day, when you have to look at Skype or if you have to look at slack or telegram or WhatsApp, it’s just complete distractions. And every time you start, and this happens all the time, you’ll hear ping, ping, I’ll be on a call with somebody, and I’ll hear the distractions going in the background, you just silence them. If I don’t have to look at it. Gmail, for example, if you want to start off a starting point is pause your email box. So you’ve got your emails, you can pause it, you can pause it for a few minutes, you can pause it for an hour, and then get back to it. I know there’s going to be a question that will come up. What about urgent matters? Well, that seldom happens. And if I have my inbox off for an hour or two hours, I really haven’t seen anything too urgent that has to have that second that I have to be on it. And if there is, luckily, I do have somebody that is monitoring my inbox. So anyways, once I get all those scratch distractions out of the way, I can concentrate on doing what I need to do. And then the other, you’ve got to get the other things out of the way as well. So when do you do your B, and C tasks, those are important. And a lot of the time stress happens is when you don’t get those out of the way. So I will slot time during the day to make sure that see tasks are usually things I can get 20 or 30 done very quickly. Just those are Yes, no answers click, I got to make a decision where I’m going to do something or not be tasks are a bit more might be for later on down the week, it might be a decision I have to make a meeting I might have to set but even my meetings typically are either set by Kelsey or by this EA. So I should also talk about what’s the difference between Yeah, go ahead.

Unknown Speaker  7:12  

Second, we do have a special guest that is on right now. And you may recognize him. If you’re ready, if I’m sorry, if I’m interrupting you. But we have our doctor Dr. caze. Joining us,

Unknown Speaker  7:27  

Hey, how are ya? norm? How you doing? Can you hear me? Well, I can hear you excellent. How are you sir? It’s so normal. To be very honest, this topic of productivity fascinates me. Because I’m you have that spectrums where you have the Kevin kings of the world, that in my mind, you know, he does a lot himself, very organic ground does speak. And then you have the other philosophy, where people sort of manage things, I would say from an armchair situation, they have vas, and they are sort of in an executive role, dealing with various HR issues. So then the HR resource and asset can then take care of the daily tasks and activities and responsibilities. And obviously, the answer always comes up depends where you are, of course, if you’re less than six figures, seven figures, you could still probably pull it off yourself. Once you get to a certain, you know, several million, then you’ll need definitely some external help. And I think there’s there’s a transition point and personally, I’m feeling it at the moment where I’m trying to, you know, manage all that. But then there’s the other victim norm, which gets me personally and that is does your personality fit with managing other people? Are you an introvert extrovert? And that No, I don’t think it’s discussed enough. Because me personally, I’ve you know, manage many large groups in the past with various corporations and companies. But I’ve come to the point in my life where I was thinking, you know, what, I really don’t want to be an HR manager, I want to just do everything myself, maybe have one to trust the team members. And we could be lean and mean we could move fast get product out design products source and everything else and keeping it in that realm. So the the point then comes I’m coming full circle, it really does depend I believe on your personality and what you actually really want to be doing with your time and that’s my point I’m I wanted to get your reflection on that. And how you think that balances with you know, obviously growing and getting big and big, but end of the day, it really comes down to happiness. You know, are you really happy managing 10 days? Are you happy managing yourself and being content with enough growth just enough to pay the bills, have a holiday a vacation, etc, etc. So that’s my point. No, I’m I just wanted to get your feedback on that.

Unknown Speaker  9:53  

You know, that’s a that’s a really great question. Because when you’re When you go out there, everybody’s got a different reason for getting involved with whatever they’re doing. And so if you’re, if you’re a small seller, and you want to keep it, you know, very, very tight, that’s fine, I still recommend that you, you create these automated systems for yourself or for somebody else. And even if you’re growing at a slow pace, it’s always great to be able to take those on probably 80% of tasks that you really don’t want to do the repetitive and they’re just a waste of your time. Those one if you got one person that you can go and you can just talk to, that’s awesome. Yes. However, like in your situation, okay. That’s, that’s, you know, we’ve struggled with that in different companies. So what we what do we do? Oh, you’re having lunch, but nor

Unknown Speaker  10:57  

not o’clock is bagels and coffee as long as my messages and it’s real, I’m eating bagels. And that’s it’s lunch with mom, but it’s our breakfast here in Los Angeles. So Excuse me? Well, cheers.

Unknown Speaker  11:12  

We do have Taylor, she’s joined us. Okay,

Unknown Speaker  11:15  

I just want to finish. I want to finish answering this question, Kelsey, because it is a very important app. So what do you do, so you don’t like doing it, you don’t want to be managing 30 different VA as well, you can either become a business development side of thing and hire an operations manager, that operations manager can take care of it, if you’re actually growing the business, grow the business work on your strengths. And that’s the key when we’re looking at doing anything, work on your strengths. I hate human resources. I hire human resource person who’s an expert to get you the right person. If I’m, if I want to grow my business, if that’s your passion, it sounds like that’s what you’re doing. Then you become the business development person, you know, or you work with a business development person to really, you know, get things going and get those ideas flowing. But at the end of the day, your person that’s overlooking the vas are going to be an operations manager and a really good person to look at who does an excellent job for us. It’s over a PR reach is manner. A lot of people over here might have heard of Manoj she’s our operations manager. She takes care of everything. And she does a great job. And that’s exactly what her role is, is just kind of managing all those writers and V A’s that we have over there. Yes, yes. So does that answer your question?

Unknown Speaker  12:39  

He does? No, he does. He does. But to be honest. I would just encourage people, and I don’t hear this enough. understand yourself, understand what makes you happy. If managing operation managers managing the AIDS makes you happy, great. If operating with one or two people being content with that growth, less problems, less headaches, we sleep good at night time, which is what we all want to do, then that’s excellent. And I think personally, I’m in the latter bucket where I’m content. I’m happy with some growth. I don’t want to be getting calls bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, or, and, and managing my team, a trusted team, very important to trust the team that you’re with, and to keep plodding along. Because I hear it so many times on a podcast realm. Let’s grow. Let’s go back. Let’s go Ba ba ba ba. But you know what, there’s a price to that. And that is your sanity. Because we all want to sleep well at night time. We don’t want problems. We want to make some money, but at a certain pace. And I think I want to take that message out and our happiness is number one. We need to exactly. Yes.

Unknown Speaker  13:52  

Yeah, exactly. So for me it’s work on your strengths, not on your weaknesses. Yes. Well, thanks, Tom. Keep doing the great work. You do, Kelsey, I’m watching. Thanks so much, guys. All right.

Unknown Speaker  14:08  

All right. Awesome. So we got a little special guests there. But we do have Taylor here. And we’ll get the show going right now. So do you want to do your little intro?

Unknown Speaker  14:17  

I will relax. So now it’s that time. So we do have Taylor that’s coming on board. And we’re going to be talking about product photography and how to make those images pop. So sit back, relax, grab a cup of coffee and enjoy the show and I didn’t even have to get in the fetal position. So thanks to Dr. Cause. A How are you Taylor?

Unknown Speaker  14:40  

I’m doing good. I made it. We made it little technical difficulties this morning. But hey, you jumped through hoops, right?

Unknown Speaker  14:47  

Did you go in the fetal position? No. Oh, good. Good. So hey, it’s great to have you here. I think it was Marcia that talked to us about Your services and and if any, excuse me, if anybody knows what Marsha is doing and her products and her website, you can see that she has incredible photography. So anyways, I asked, and she said you did it all. So anyways, let’s let’s talk about that. What? Why so a picture’s not a pitcher, just because you have an iPhone doesn’t make you a photographer. Let’s talk about the importance of product photography.

Unknown Speaker  15:29  

Well, first of all, thanks for having me. I’m a fan of your platform and the knowledge that you’ve created, you’ve created a massive library for so many business owners. So I appreciate being able to have a moment of time here. So thank you for that. And going back to your question and product photography. I remember back in college, one of my assignments was Wrigley’s gum. And what made Wrigley’s gum something that everybody wanted. And it was the story, it was a relatable piece that you wanted this GM with you because it was the Hello. And that got me at the age of 20. Like, okay, there’s a personality here. Like I’ll never forget, you know, I remember the little Wrigley’s gum walking across the screen and saying hello. And it stuck with me. And my very first job was with a big product company, given a product and you know, was like, how do you make a personality come out of a box? How can we make this relatable to 1000s of people? And I think that’s the part I love is figuring out what is the personality of this product? And how do we convey that? And how do we get this across to the masses, and make it creative. And of course, through technology the last 20 years, we’re able to do so much that it’s really, I don’t think there’s a limit of what you can do with a product now and how you can bring it to life. So I love figuring out the personality of the product, and also the personality, the person buying the product, because there’s two pieces there that have to coexist.

Unknown Speaker  16:54  

Alright, so if somebody sends you over a product, is it necessary to know the story behind the brand?

Unknown Speaker  17:02  

Not necessary, but I do like to know why. There’s something about the way you were just talking about that. There’s when you ask a client why. And I just did this last week, when I asked the client Why did you create this product? And it was during him explaining his why about his granddaughter that put heart into it. Do you mean so it for me as an artist that inspired me like Okay, so this is this product has nothing to do with his granddaughter, however it was inspired through her. And there’s just something as a creative that kind of ignites something inside of us, the team and I sat down we mapped out we were going to do for the video, the video got picked up for syndication and it’s now playing on the airwaves. But it was understanding that why and then when you look at the video, you would never see the why. But I think as a creative for me understanding the why. And you had mentioned, Marcia, who created stable copper was, you know, I’ve worked with her before and other products, but it was asking her what’s your WHY? Like, why did you create this? And I think that centers around everything we do is why do we do what we do. And it is it’s telling a story. And it’s how we tell that story that really sells a product. So every product has a personality, every product Yep, I’m gonna even say even hemorrhoid cream has a story has a personality?

Unknown Speaker  18:23  

Well, what about plastic shoe stretches? So somebody comes to you and they give you a plastic shoe stretcher? And there’s a reason for this question. It’s a crappy product. cheap plastic. springs are no good. How can you make that product look better than it is?

Unknown Speaker  18:42  

What I need to see the product and find out you know what? What is his role? How does it make you what’s the what’s the users game? What are they want this product? Is it going to make their life more convenient, can they get their shoes on faster, you know, and then if their shoes going faster what’s going on in their life that’s allowing that to benefit them. You know, as the dog gets up, and needs to go potty and putting their shoes on and tying it caused an accident or, you know, throwing the shoes on faster they can get out the door. So it’s kind of figuring out the role that product has to play. And then building the personality around that.

Unknown Speaker  19:19  

A product photography as a photographer has a special talent. I’ve seen it I’ve worked with product photographers, completely different than other photographers. Completely different than amateurs who think they’re professionals. You know, lighting lenses. These are all things that have to come into play. Do you want to talk a little bit about the different types of lenses and lighting and everything that you need to make that product a perfect pitcher?

Unknown Speaker  19:52  

I will thank you for asking that question because it is it’s lightning. It’s all about the composition, the lighting, bad lighting. It’s like going to a movie. That’s Not well lit, right? And you’re it’s hard to see the subject and you’re not even paying attention to the story. Because you’re like, what’s going on? How come I can’t see the subject? You know, same thing with music, it’s everything the build up. So when we map out creating a video, we’re doing everything from what is this product going to look like? What’s going on around the product? What kind of lens Do we need to use? Is this a small product we need to make look big. So we’re going to select the lens that’s going to allow that is this more of a cinema graph? product we want emotional, so then we’re going to use our cinema lens cinematography lenses to do that. It’s different cameras to we, we have a plethora of cameras to kind of figure that out, is there drone pieces that need to be in this to kind of elevate the product, you know, showing that the product is actually in use out on the road? There’s so much that goes into the planning phase of it, but we all start with the story. And then the lighting, the lighting is the next thing what in the lighting Do we need to tell isn’t moody? is a pop? You know? Is it blown out? Like what is that that needs to come into play and then setting up the lights around that. And when we do product photography, like you were saying, It’s ours, we don’t just set a product down, throw a light, throw a camera up and go click click, click, it’s set the product down, create the backdrop and then light it? And how are we going to light it? You know, let’s start there, and then build up what’s the lens? What’s the camera that needs to be attached? And then after that through post, what’s the story it needs to tell from music? Through editing.

Unknown Speaker  21:26  

There are a lot of photographers out there. And I reason I’m jumping into this is we’re gonna get a lot of probably questions about price. And I can go over to Fiverr, I can send, you know, photos haven’t done in China, which I’ve done. And Not bad, not Not bad, not great. And it depends on the photographer. But anyways, they’re all over the price points are all over, there’s all sorts of places out there that do very quick, I’ve seen them at $10 $35. The way that I’ve always been brought up with product photography, is that first you’re paying for the expertise, you’re paying for the camera, the studio, and a lot of the times I was paying for half studio, like half shoots for a day, or full shoots. And what I’m finding now is okay, you know, it’s $10, or it’s $30 an image. And I just, I can never figure out how a high quality professional photographer can make it with $10 a picture or $15 an image, you know, they’re just the cameras alone. And the lenses alone are 1000s of dollars. So can you explain to people like when when you’re in there are good. And I’m talking about good quality pitches Kevin King was on I don’t know if you know him. He was on the other day. And he talks about Mark his photographer, and he’ll spend 1200 to 2500 bucks from start to finish on his product line. And he he it’s a cost it’s it costs money. You know, and I just want to talk about that. Because I know that I know that’s going to come up for sure is the cost. How it’s all over? It’s how long is a piece of string? So how can you justify, you know, paying a studio shoot compared to Oh, $10 a picture?

Unknown Speaker  23:22  

You know, when it comes down to what you want the quality? What’s, you know, what do you really want, I can look at a $10 photo and we can look at $75 photo and see the difference. And it’s really comes down to what the company can afford. And I’ve started with companies that are like, No, we’ve got a $25 budget for per photo, can we work there and it’s like we can, however, what what brought you to us? Well, this photo, well, that’s not a $25 photo, that’s a $75 photo and explaining to the customer and kind of educating them what goes into it, there’s a little bit more story going on, there’s better lighting, there’s everything else that makes this photo look better took place. So there’s a definite difference. I’ve been into studios where they just use iPhones and they’re just using iPhones to take, you know, 1000s of photos of products on white background. And that’s great. But then there’s the next piece we all know when we go look at a photo, we see the little dots at the bottom, we start scrolling. The first photo grabs us right because we’re looking for that product, that product is going to serve a need. I have the second product, the third photo, fourth photo, fifth photo, and then I see the video and that’s where we really stand apart is we tell our clients when you hire us not only are you going to get photos, we’re going to give you a 10 to 15 second video that you’re going to be able to use on your listing. Because if you can show a consumer how this product works, or what makes it different defines it. So that kind of justifies our price because we’re going to give the client a little bit more. The other thing they get with us is communication. We’re huge. My entire team and I are huge on communication and really being the best we can possibly be for that product and for that client. Because our end game they don’t go anywhere else. They stay with us. And we get to grow with him. Because every time we get to work with a client, we get to go deeper and deeper. And I always call it the stretch on like, we’re gonna stretch now that we’ve got this relationship and you understand what we can do as creatives, we want to stretch this. And if we stretch too far, we can always take a step back. But if we don’t show the client, we can stretch and do things a little different and different on that level of upping it, then they’re always going to live in that little box. And this is what I can get if I go to a different platform that’s 10 or $15, an image, you know, and our goal is to grow with the company that’s, I’ve known Marshall for 10 years. And I think that’s what I love is being able to grow with a client, I’ve had a client for 18 years, that every time she comes up with a new product, all she does is send it over and she’s like, I don’t have to tell you what to do, you already know what to do. And there’s that trust. So the really, the communication that trust, we want to build with every brand we work with. And that kind of defines the price because they know the value they’re going to get from us, it’s going to exceed anything, they’re going to get 10 or $15 anywhere else.

Unknown Speaker  26:00  

And you can go on and on any search and you can see an okay, a flat, a flat image and okay image and a really great image. And typically, those really great images will generate more sales, unless the title and everything else sucks. Or if the product is sucks, then you’ll get some bad listings, which is going to cause another problem. One of the there’s another person involved in product photography, that doesn’t usually get talked about. And that’s a graphic artist. And the graphic when we get in, maybe you won’t agree with this. But when we get and I can give you an example, when we do our product photography, the product photographer will will send us over the images, we take a look at the images, we select whatever ones we want. And I’ll give you an example of we were doing this glass jar that had some liquid in it had like a nice logo on the front, you could look through the glass jar, and see all the instructions backwards in the background, and even on the sides. So what we’ve done is we’ll go over and we’ll make sure that these are photoshopped. So you don’t see it, it makes the it doesn’t distract from the actual image and the beauty of the image. Do you do things like that? Do you provide services like that?

Unknown Speaker  27:25  

Oh, yeah, I’m super, super anal about that. We do have an amazing infographic person we work with that she’s spot on, she gets what we need, and is able to fix it, I have an amazing editor on my team that can look at a product and go let’s edit this and, you know, take this one element out, and it is when we look at a product What’s taking the ioway You know, when you look at this, what’s what’s distracting, and not making this actually pop up every time we create an image or a goal is if this ends up on TV on a side of a bus. We want this to look perfect. I don’t want to be at a bus stop and see a bus go by with my image you got a Why don’t we Photoshop that out? You know, why don’t I see it all the time? I’m like, What did they take that glare out of the bottle? That glare is distracting and taking away from the label.

Unknown Speaker  28:09  

You know, it drives me crazy if if I’m doing a search, let’s say I’m looking for blankets. Let’s say blankets, it’s you know, something cotton. And you see these blankets, and they’ve got all these wrinkles in it and they’re not straight. Your image should be absolutely perfect. But people don’t realize some people don’t realize that you can just get that extra editing done. Sometimes it costs as much as the image. But at the end of the day, it that’s your money shot. That is what’s going to drive sales. And you see, you know, I use helium 10x Ray at times and I’ll just kind of play around with it. And I’ll take a look. And you’ll see that might be a better product. However, it’s got way less sales if they just improved the logo or the the image it would have been that much better. Now, you

Unknown Speaker  29:05  

know, I have to just jump in here really quick. My mom is always say you judge the book by the cover, right? And it comes down to photos. Sometimes if I’m doing a search for a product and the photos are low quality, I automatically think low quality product. This product is not the best. And so I’ll scroll on to the next one.

Unknown Speaker  29:22  

Now, I forgot to ask you at the beginning I hear that you have a giveaway. What is the giveaway today?

Unknown Speaker  29:29  

So we’re going to give away one free product shot for somebody that you draw and we’ll give them an idea of what we do and how we make magic happen. And in that there’s gonna be a little surprise a little tiny video for them. Oh, fantastic.

Unknown Speaker  29:43  

Fantastic. Now, I don’t know anything about your pricing. I don’t take affiliate fees or anything like that. We will talk about how to contact you But anyways, I want to make sure people know that because You know, we have you on here because I’ve heard great things about you and your photography. So, you know, guys, if you want, what is it, Kelsey, I’m not sure what the hashtag is. No sneezy hashtag, we love Taylor. Oh, there we go. We love Taylor. How’s that? Alright, how did I know that was going to be the hashtag, it seems like Kelsey comes up with that all the time. Not always I love Taylor, though. But whoever the guest is. Alright, so if you are interested in in the photoshoot, you just put in hashtag, I love Taylor and you’ll be entered. And if you tag us, with tag, two people in here, will give you an extra drawing. Alright, one of the other things that I think we should talk about is the storyboard. It’s Do you find this, there’s a lot of people that will go in, they’ll take a front shot, a side shot, a back shot, the product on its side, the product with the lid open with capsules spilling out, if it’s a supplement or something, they don’t tell a story about their product. And they wonder why they don’t get sales

Unknown Speaker  31:07  

all the time, all the time. And again, it’s going back to the the personality the product, right? What’s this product story? What’s what do they want to say? And are they playful? Are they serious? You know, what’s the end game who’s the user of this product? And that comes down to the storyboard very top of our storyboard, we’ve written out in big bold, who’s our target, who’s who do we need to attract with this, you know, what’s our avatar, then build the story around that because it doesn’t make sense to do a storyboard and build a story around a shot list, unless we know where we’re going. And I think that’s a part of why I love being in marketing meetings. And now with zoom, we have clients all over the world that were able to join their marketing meetings, I’m like, I just want to be a fly on the wall. Because something could be said in your marketing meeting, that will translate visually, in an amazing way. But if we’re not in the room, and we don’t hear that, then that kind of shortens what we can actually create. And I, the one thing about my personality is I don’t ever want to be limited on what we can create, you know, and it’s, you know, we were given a product a couple months ago that, again, you know, said for products, it’s got to have a perfect label, don’t send it just one bottle, because if it gets scuffed, we have to have, you know, more bottles. So scientists and really look at the product, make sure it’s pretty labeling. And all they wanted was everything shot on just white. And I was like, that’s not the story of this product, this product is for a woman that’s 16 to 85 years old, and it’s going to keep them safe. And me shooting this on white on all the different sides isn’t going to tell the story. You know, and that’s where we had to go back to the client go, we’re gonna go a little bit deeper, spend a little more time on this. And once we were done, we created just a small little video just showing who would be using this product, someone walking their dog alone, someone walking to their car alone. And putting that little video on the end, they’re like, hey, our sales tripled. Because of that. And I’m like, because now everybody knows who those products for, and how it’s going to keep somebody safe. And now it’s going to be something you’re going to want to give everybody to help help your loved one stay safe. And I think that’s a part of the storyboard piece is realizing who’s who’s the end game, who’s the who’s the user of this product, who’s buying this, and then build a story around it. And I feel like most times, it takes just a few more minutes in a marketing meeting to realize, okay, we’re not telling the story of just on a white background. They’re not going to get that let’s figure this piece out.

Unknown Speaker  33:32  

On that storyboard, what are you looking for? Are you going after benefits? features? Why instructions? directions? What are the things that you’re looking for to make it more engaging?

Unknown Speaker  33:47  

All of that? I think it’s knowing the features, the product has the benefits? What makes this product different than the other nine bottles that might be on the shelf? Or available? If I’m doing a Google search for this product, or on my Amazon? What’s making this product stand out? That’s different, you know, and if the content you know, what’s being written out in the text, is there something in that text that actually would translate great in a visual element? And if so, let’s create it. So it’s really I feel like we take a lot of data in. And I always tell my clients 80% of our work is data collecting. And going through all this 20% is picking up the camera and actually sitting down and doing the shoot of the product, but it’s really truly understanding why someone wants this product because right now I feel like when you go out there, there’s 15 products for one piece, right? I’ve got one problem. Let’s use toothpaste as an example. Every time I go to get toothpaste, I’m inundated by the wall of toothpaste, which one do I want? So it’s the story piece what’s visually grabbing what’s on the box that speaking to a problem I have. So with all the benefits, the features, it’s basically everything based around that product is going to help us create images that will help itself.

Unknown Speaker  34:59  

Do you ever Look at the Amazon copy or the images or the website to grab information

Unknown Speaker  35:06  

all the time. All the time. It’s it’s a huge resource. And when we go look at their competition, now, who’s your competition? What are they saying? What are they doing? You know, we love looking at old bad reviews from the attic we’re working with. And from a competition, because there’s a lot of data and those bad reviews of case something wasn’t said here. If someone’s complaining about something, let’s have a solution to it. Let’s figure out if someone’s complaining. They didn’t know x, y, and z. Let’s show it. And that’s the won’t be a complaint anymore.

Unknown Speaker  35:37  

One of the things, it was Diane bolster that came up with this idea, and I love it, but in your images, and also in your bullet. But if you reflect the bullet in the image, and don’t write a book, when you’re putting copy on your image, just a few words, but also have that unique word. And she’s like, she’ll just make up words, you know, for that plastic shoe stretcher. It might be tectonic, whatever tectonic strength, you know, the only plastic shoe search are known to have tectonic strength. And she’ll use that and then all of a sudden, the image will have, you know, number one in tectonic tech, not tectonic technology or something like that. And that just, you know, it’s different than those 10 other people who are selling the same plastic shoe stretcher.

Unknown Speaker  36:25  

Right? And again, it comes down to what makes it different. What’s going to make it stand out from the crowd.

Unknown Speaker  36:31  

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. The other thing. And I, there’s, there’s people who use stock photography, and usually poorly, because it’ll be some woman in the, you know, bath that’s already, you know, in everybody else’s photos, that has a bar of soap five times too big for hand, or a true influencer, somebody that’s providing social proof that they love the product. I don’t know about you, but I think every Amazon listing for the most part, should have at least one piece of social proof. What do you think?

Unknown Speaker  37:09  

Oh, I totally agree with that. It is we buy off of who bought it, who is using it? You know, and is it? And sometimes it doesn’t have to be a big influencer, I just need to see someone I can relate to using this product.

Unknown Speaker  37:21  

Right? Yeah, it could be free, you could ask, you can ask somebody on an insert card to you know, tag, you know, just tag me. And then you’ve got a couple of free images that you could use. Alright. Hey, Kelsey, is there any questions?

Unknown Speaker  37:38  

Oh, yeah, we got tons coming in. So yeah, we can just jump into those. Let me see. Okay, from there in? How do Amazon photography differ from Shopify? Is there a difference?

Unknown Speaker  37:58  

I feel like Shopify, you have a little more freedom. I was just gonna say that. Yeah, we have a little bit more freedom for creativity, Amazon, we’ve got to kind of follow their guidelines, and Shopify has some guidelines. But as far as colors and lifestyle and things like that, we’ve we’ve got more play room with Shopify, Amazon, we can do that after we’ve created the standard, you know, white on white background and kind of just the, the piece, it’s going to match everybody else.

Unknown Speaker  38:25  

Yeah, and Amazon is much better now, because of the different a plus templates that they have, as well. And I love this, the store is taking advantage of the stores and what you can do, especially for a product description, what you can’t do on your product listing, you can have it as a level or two deep, and you can have a really incredible product listing on your store on Amazon. So it’s it’s not like Shopify, Shopify, you’ve got all that you’re you’re much more free. As long as you just have to dig a little deeper in Amazon to have that freedom, I think. Yeah, definitely.

Unknown Speaker  39:07  

Okay. How do you protect photos, how to protect photos copyrighted after you post them on Amazon, if my brand name is not printed on my product, I will pay for photos and my competitors will often steal them.

Unknown Speaker  39:25  

What a nightmare that is. And I’ve run into that with a couple clients and actually going after them and you know, really partnering with Amazon to say, hey, they’ve looked at this, this photo, they’ve taken it from another listing. So normally, you probably have a little bit more background on that, but it happens all the time.

Unknown Speaker  39:42  

You know, one of the things that we’ll try to do is try somehow have the logo in there or have the brand in there. It could be on the package. It could be something that would show that it is different. I’ll give you an example this I guess this is against TLS tech. Technically, but I sell soap, and on the soap on the actual soap, it’ll say the brand name, but I can’t stamp it and take a good picture, it just won’t happen. So I digitally watermark it and put it on there, I’ve never had Amazon come back and say, you know, you’re suppressed or anything for that. But it’s not technically, you know, it’s not kosher. But if you do have something like that, then you can, you can get those stolen images down, because it’s got your logo on it, and you are the brand owner. So kind of keep that in mind. It is a pain in the butt if you don’t, if it’s just a generic phone photo, you’re going to have real struggles, because it’s an open marketplace. on your website, that’s a whole different story.

Unknown Speaker  40:56  

Let’s see from Jeffrey, what do you do for lifestyle photo props, for example, if your product touches to another item,

Unknown Speaker  41:05  

and we, if we don’t want to advertise the other item, we kind of hold it off at a screen, do you mean and showing it being attached that way. So it’s kind of figuring out what what that item is what it does need what’s attaching to, you know, like a, we did a bike rack for a car, but we didn’t, we had to be very careful how we showed how it was attaching and all of those. So it’s just figuring out what we can show what the clients comfortable showing, we can’t give away, you know, sell another product for that attachment. So it’s it’s it can be done, we do it all the time. It’s just figuring out the angles and how we’re going to photograph and film it.

Unknown Speaker  41:38  

The other thing you can do too, is have a ghost image. So you just have a draft drawing in there. So let’s say my little garden gnome. You know, you don’t want to show the hat, but you can show the the, the blue shirt it’s wearing, which is right here, by the way. So there he is. So anyways, you could just make like a drawing. And it can be very generic Jeffrey, I think I know what you’re talking about. And if that doesn’t answer your question, I think it does, but if it doesn’t, I know we’re going to be talking later on today anyways, so anyways, I think that’ll do that should work anyway. Or what you can do is have an have a image zoomed in on what you’re attaching. And then you can just explain it like you can have an arrow pointing down and just saying what you’re doing. So this is more of an instructional infographic. So and that’s 100%. Okay, it’s, you know, to us no problem.

Unknown Speaker  42:44  

We call it the IKEA example, given IKEA drawing. Yeah, very basic and simple, and then attach the photo to it.

Unknown Speaker  42:55  

Okay, let’s see. Oh, I also want to mention, if you guys are interested in leaving a review, for our podcast, I’m going to be putting a link in the description of the group and the Facebook page and YouTube and stuff. But there’s basically a link for our Facebook page or review section there. So if you enjoy the podcast, if you’re a beard, buddy, go on and leave a little review over there. That would be great. We really appreciate it. And then Okay, next question from Tony, is Amazon allowing 3d rendering pictures on the first image or other images?

Unknown Speaker  43:29  

Nope. People do it all the time. It’s against technically it’s against TLS. How much risk is associated with it? Like I just mentioned, I, you know, have that watermark in but yeah, you’re technically not supposed to be putting 3d rendering in. So but sometimes I there’s no other way around it. I can’t see it anyways, uncertain products. But yeah, that’s your answer, Tony.

Unknown Speaker  44:02  

And let me see from Marcia Taylor, whose work has most influenced your work.

Unknown Speaker  44:12  

Well, Marsha’s heart has very much influenced me when it comes down to my work. I always think of Annie Leibovitz and Ron Howard. I feel like any Liebowitz really understands how to take a portrait photographer and I did that for years and I still do portrait photography. And Ron Howard does how to tell a story and I think those two have influenced my work because regardless if I’m doing you know a lifestyle shoot a portrait shoot or product shoot it’s figuring out what the emotional connection here How am I going to connect to this because if the barf so I can have an emotional connection to it. Let’s remember the Old Spice guy we all connected to him right there was regardless if you are a man, or had a man in your life, and it’s that emotional piece and I think that comes down to all products. So it’s you know, I was drawn though To have my influence for it for that piece, and then really finding out what’s the heart? And who are we talking to him? Let’s bring that forward. Very good.

Unknown Speaker  45:10  

Okay, and this one is from Victor Taylor, what is your opinion regarding direction of the models gaze, looking at the lens versus not doing that. I know this depends on the product or advertising intent. But in general, for Amazon lifestyle images,

Unknown Speaker  45:26  

it really comes down to, I hate to say that, but it comes down to their own personal gauge, right? Some models can do a really good gaze and some can’t, does the gaze fit what you’re trying to tell to, again, going back to that storyboard and that piece, and there’s times that we feel like, okay, the client should be looking off to the side, we were just doing a commercial shoot last week in San Francisco. And we really had gone into the storyboard thinking this client was looking off to the side. And when we got there, I’m like, we’re gonna go ahead and film that. But I think at the end, this client, this model needs to actually look at the camera and say, this line out of the text. And when we did that, we went back and looked at it and posed. That’s the piece that spoke to us. So again, on a shoot, we’re not just going to be limited, if something really speaks, or we feel like we need to change, we’re going to, we’re going to change on the dime to figure that out. So it really comes down to when we’re looking at things in post. If that models gazing off, do I feel disconnected? Am I wondering what she was looking at? Did my thought just leave what the product is? If that’s the case, that’s not the right image?

Unknown Speaker  46:27  

That’s interesting. That is really I never thought about that. But if the the product if the person’s thinking about your product, you know, are they using it? Are they satisfied with it? Where are their eye positions? You know, if they want to give you a direct message, looking into the camera? And again, I guess that’s up to the photographer, but that’s Yeah, that was a very good question. That was, yeah. Oh, I’m kind of curious. What are the costs? Is there a range of costs for models through you?

Unknown Speaker  46:58  

There is, um, we use a bunch of different agencies. So we try and figure out you know, what’s the budget for the client? Sometimes we can find three models. If I say, hey, you throw them a couple pieces of your product. I’ve got someone that’s, you know, that I’ve worked with, that would be great. And she’ll take product and trade or he’ll take product and trade. So to kind of do you know, we always go back to the budget, what’s your budget for this? And then we kind of go through our own talent roster that we have we work with, like I said, we work with a budget agencies? Well, we can figure out, you know, does it require someone that has acting ability? You know, are we because Are we going to lose? Are you going to lose production time with us trying to coach somebody to say the lines and go through this? Or is it going to save you money in the long run to hire someone that actually knows how to hold the bottle? Not everybody knows how to hold the bottle? Not everybody knows how to hold the product. So you know, or eat the Wrigley’s gum. Right? Yes. And chew it without looking

Unknown Speaker  47:51  

technique. That was that was a technique they had. Yeah, I remember that. All right, cows. Oh, Kelsey. Zoolander goes. On all right.

Unknown Speaker  48:11  

Okay, Doctor, cause for lifestyle photos or lifestyle shots. I heard from psychology experiments that having a milk human in the shot as a significant advantage. Do you agree?

Unknown Speaker  48:21  

I totally agree. I totally agree. We know a model from a model a we know someone that’s Becky next door. And I think again, it comes down to we use a lot of people in our own little circle of saying, Hey, you know, just last night, I was looking at a family photo of a long distance cousin on like, how far does she live from because she would be awesome for the shoot, we have planned. And I can see her using this product. And again, it’s relatable, right? Because she and when I shot her attacks and said, Would you actually use this product? She says, Oh, I would totally use it. She’s gonna be a great model for that shoot, because it’s relatable. And we want her to relate. And I think we’re seeing that more and more in social media and on our feeds. We want that relatable piece. I want to know who else is using this product? Do they drink coffee like me? Do they? You ride bikes? Like maybe what’s that relatable piece and it comes down to their relationship? So that I want to buy this product because they’re using it? Yeah, just think of a clean shaven guy buying beard oil. Right, right. Right.

Unknown Speaker  49:18  

Okay, let’s see. So I also want to mention, if you haven’t yet, please smash those like buttons. We really appreciate it. And we do have our Patreon. So if you ever want to buy me and norm, a cup of coffee, there’s a couple of options there. Also just help support the podcast. So I’ll put the descriptions or the links in the description box. But on to our next question or like hot chocolate for Kelsey. This is from Clive, typically how long would it take to do the photos and the editing for one product for an Amazon listing?

Unknown Speaker  49:55  

No, I hate to say my editor is gonna kill me for this but we You can easily turn things around in 72 hours if there’s a rush. You know, we don’t work weekends we work, you know, Monday through Friday. So it depends on when we get the product. But we do try and turn things around within 72 hours if, if the storyboards there, we feel like we’ve got the data we need to create some good images.

Unknown Speaker  50:18  

How long? I’m curious here to set up proper lighting. Let’s see it was the garden gnome, okay, or the plastic shoe stretcher to set up lighting? How long would that take?

Unknown Speaker  50:32  

take anywhere from a half hour to two hours, right? It really comes down to we light it, we step behind the camera and look at it and go Okay, is it? Do we see all the details? Are we missing any details on this? You know, and we throw it up on a big screen where we’re shooting it and going, Hey, let’s take one photo and see if we’re missing and then move the product move the light is there a shadow that’s competing, you know, sometimes it’s great to have a shadow, sometimes the shadow takes away from the product. So it’s all based around that. And it’s usually that’s the longest part of that shoot is setting up the lighting and getting exactly where we want. And sometimes it’s a micro like move the light to two centimeters, and it’s great, or it’s moving two feet, throwing it up overhead. So the lighting is the key piece. And I’m super anal about that making sure everything’s well lit, and then really looking at the product and making sure my eye is not leaving. And I think part of what I love about photography is there’s a psychology piece to it, right? It’s also not my pulled in, why do we pick up magazine covers? Why do we pick up album covers, you know, it’s all about the image. And it was it spoke to us and it had an emotion to it. So again, even if it’s being photographed on a white background, what’s the connection that’s going to make me stop and actually look at this product. And sometimes it’s the angle and the lighting. And just figuring out that that magic piece, well, it does take time. Once we’ve got that dialed in, then we can we start humming.

Unknown Speaker  51:54  

We shot some garden shares, we took over this listing and the garden Cheers. It wasn’t a terrible photograph of the original primary image garden share was there actually was a we duplicated the the hand model with the garden shears. And the lighting was flat. The metal was because it was a titanium or a carbon steel, it was dark, and then you can see the handle. Then we took a picture through a professional photographer, basically the same hand, but the steel was STEEL GRAY and the spring, like the any of the metal were that silver metal look. But the most important thing was the rim of light that highlighted the handle just on the top and on the bottom it gave it shape. And you can also see that and sometimes you have to get your graphic artists to do this. But on supplements or something that’s in a cylinder, you can have a very flat shot people, most people Oh, that’s nice shot, you had that rim of light going down the sides to give it that reach out and you know, you can touch it, that makes a world of difference. So the reason why I asked about the lighting is it might take you that half hour to two hours. And then you might have to change the whole lighting around, especially if you’ve got a model in there. And now you’re doing hand the hand model shop. So a lot of people when they think oh I’ll get this for $10 and $15 you don’t realize the time that’s put into lighting with a true and a true product photographer.

Unknown Speaker  53:39  

Well yeah, thank you for pointing that out. Because there is such variations of photography, right and photographer skill set. And it is about the lighting it’s about backlighting, it’s about top lighting, it’s about bottom lighting it and we had a can Nope, we lost we lost you can you I don’t know how you’re back, you’re back there right about that. But it was figuring out the lighting of it and then realizing we wanted it on a sheet of water right because it’s lemonade we wanted to have this reflection well we spent two hours setting up the lighting and the suddenly brought that element in everything had to be scratched with lighting and start over and that’s the piece that as an artist I think there’s a skill set in there as an artist as a visual artist of what makes us more compelling and we gave the client both shots and the client fell in love with the one with the reflection was like that to me speaks to the high level product I want my client you know my consumer to see But again, it’s it’s there’s so much involved in as you know, and it’s it’s truly all those elements that when it comes together and you get the product and then it you know it’s upon the websites about e commerce or Amazon and the client sees that there’s that that moment of pride of all the hard work has paid off for this product and they’re seeing how they truly saw it. in their head because I think anytime someone creates a product they’ve already visually kind of seen how they want it to be. And then you know, standing true to that and then kind of stretching it and getting it out there. We’re now speaks to the consumer. Right? Okay kills more questions.

Unknown Speaker  55:15  

Yep. Oh, Taylor, do you have cut? Sorry, cut off time today. We’re reaching the top of the hour.

Unknown Speaker  55:22  

I’m good. I’m good for the next 30 minutes. Sorry. Okay, chocolate now Just a second. So this is where we usually go into song. back I’m sorry, nor can you take this

Unknown Speaker  55:39  

Yep, I can. I can. All right. What shouldn’t be in the picture, to avoid looking oh my gosh, my eyes to avoid looking salesy. salesy sales sales advisors, and

Unknown Speaker  55:53  

go ahead, buy one, buy now get one free? What’s so like an Amazon like any badges? Like what are some mistakes that people make? in their photos?

Unknown Speaker  56:09  

I think putting badges on it compete with the product and take the attention away. Jimmy when I look at the photo on my now not leaving looking at the product. Now I’m over here looking at this. And I think that’s, you know, we run into that we always kind of Okay, we got to delicately dance around how we get this removed? Because it is taking the attention away from that.

Unknown Speaker  56:29  

Okay. Yeah, and it is important that there’s a thin line, what’s salesy and you know, what? How, what, what am I trying to say, here, you know, you can, you can show somebody using the product, you can show all the features and all the benefits. But if you’re like that, midnight infomercial, then there’s a problem, I think that’s the best way to talk about it.

Unknown Speaker  57:00  

When there’s that big arrow by me by me by, that’s what I’m talking around by me and the you know, I always go back to my clients and go people want to buy, don’t sell to them. People want to buy, take that away, and you’re going to sell more products. But when you start saying buy me buy me buy me, guess what I went on to your competition and bought there.

Unknown Speaker  57:18  

The other thing I hear a lot of, but I’ve also suffered the consequences of putting 100% guaranteed satisfaction in the, you know, in the sixth or seventh spot. So Amazon has suppressed my listings, many of them for having that. So you’re not supposed to have it in your bullets. You’re not supposed to have that in your images. And, you know, the algorithm, I don’t know how but they picked it up. So just one of the things you don’t want to do I know a lot of people do. And you’ll hear a lot of podcasts say you don’t put 100% guaranteed satisfaction. But I’ve just found that it’s just a matter of when not if you know they’re gonna catch on that.

Unknown Speaker  58:06  

Well, and don’t you find people I always go back to the reviews, like even if they say 100% guaranteed, I always go look at the reviews first. And how many people really happy with this product? Right? Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  58:18  

Okay, come from Simon, how do you prevent reflections on products, for example, eyeglasses,

Unknown Speaker  58:24  

lighting, setting up the light. So it’s not in the shot, if it’s in the shop Photoshop, and we have an amazing editor that can remove any glare? Anything? I mean, on cars, you name it, he can remove the glare.

Unknown Speaker  58:41  

Okay, and from Olga, what’s your thinking on how much to spend on photography for your first product? Considering that we don’t know if it would be a successful product or not? Should we invest in a basic package to begin with? I love that question.

Unknown Speaker  58:55  

That’s a great question. You know, and, again, I’ve had clients come to me and go, this is a brand new product, we don’t have a lot to put in it. You know, what’s the smallest package we can come up with? You know, and we do have our standard packages, but 90% of it, we customize, we figure out okay. And I just had a client come to me, it’s like I have an incredibly small budget for this, what can you do? And I’m like, let’s figure out what we can do for time because we’re all you know, we don’t work for free. So what can we get done in an hour, you know, and start there. And if you if you’re happy with what we do, and your return on investment comes back, that you’re selling this, they come back to us and let’s take a part of that returning in what you’re bringing in, and let’s build your budget up. Let’s build your budget up so we can actually build what we can do up we can always start at the bottom and work our way up with you. And again, that comes down to the longevity we work with a client is we want to work with them forever. You know, I don’t we don’t want to go chase, you know, and knock on 1000 doors. We want to really work with clients who go Okay, here’s the value I’m getting. Here’s what I’m getting and now I can oh I got my money back on that. Shoot. Now I can throw you a couple $100 more towards the next shoot, I can grow that way. And that’s truly, we love seeing that take place.

Unknown Speaker  1:00:08  

If there is probably a lot of newer Amazon sellers listening to the podcast as well. But probably, if this is your first product and you’re just testing it out, get a good shot, you don’t have to get an excellent shot, you know, you’re testing it out, you’re going to be paying your Amazon tax. So you’re going to be making mistakes. And if you’re going to spend a lot of money on a photo shoot, just to find out that your your listing might fail, because of other things. just test it out, test the waters out going with a toe, you don’t have to go in with two feet. I’d love to say it like when I’m talking about my products. But I’ve got I’ve, I’ve launched and relaunched and launched. But just dabble first and my first listing. And I actually I went through school for film and photography. So and I took my I took my own photos. And I put them up there at the beginning, but I ended up going to a professional product photographer afterwards. Because they they ended up not being that great. And I started off by the iPhone. So I started off taking a couple of just quick shots I set up like a white tent, or what’s it called the light tent. And then I had a round table, you know, that would be automatic that it would just rotate the product, there are things that you can do on your own, if you don’t want to spend the money right now. But even what you said, as a product photographer, there are lower end product photography packages that you can invest in, just to get the ball rolling, but it’s completely up to you as a new seller to either your toe your foot or two feet. Right.

Unknown Speaker  1:02:01  

From Victor Taylor for upscale photos or upscale products, do you have access to high end residences for the shoot? Yes. Manny, does your opinion, what’s your opinion on good photos? Are they the same as the opinion on pickfu? So I guess, how does it rank? And that’s

Unknown Speaker  1:02:30  

so you know, you’re talking about the opinions that you get on a photo, whether a product photographer would have a different opinion compared to the demographic on pickfu? If, if that is the case, okay, so I might think that I just have the perfect photography photograph. And this happened with some hair serum we were promoting. And there was one that had one angle of the hair serum, a second angle of the hair serum, and then the box with the hair serum. I thought the box and the hair serum looked great. It filled the frame. But when I put it on pickfu pickfu came back and said the one that I hated the one not hated. But the third one option was the one to go with. So yeah, sometimes unless you do get that second opinion. And that’s why you’ll get you know, a set of photos, you can take that set and you can put it on pickfu to see what your demographic likes or doesn’t like. So, do you have anything to add to that tailor?

Unknown Speaker  1:03:43  

No, I think it’s the same thing. And again, you know, social media is always the social proof. Do we throw things out there on social media and say what picked up? We’ll do that with clients too. And say, let’s test this and see who who’s sharing this who’s liking this image more? Because again, it could just be like you were saying it’d be in the box could be out of the box. What What does the audience want to see? What did they connect with? Because again, comes into that emotional connection? You know, what do they like?

Unknown Speaker  1:04:08  

Perfect. All right, we’re gonna roll down to a couple of last questions. However, if you do want to join the giveaway today, which is a photo shoot, hashtag, we love Taylor, and you’ll get entered. And if you tag us with two people on the in the comments right now you’ll get a second entry. So Kelsey has a couple more questions. And then I have one last one.

Unknown Speaker  1:04:33  

Okay, so we’ll do two questions from the audience. And then you can Okay, okay. Okay, for Mr. dk, Kim, what are your thoughts about full 3d rendering services without Photoshop comparing to the actual Photoshop shoots? pros and cons?

Unknown Speaker  1:04:48  

It depends on the product if it needs it. I mean, we do it as same thing if it’s too flat, and we can’t bring that 3d piece in and really show the relatable piece by hand or is the element inside so What’s making this product different inside a casing? A shell casing that you can’t see, then yes, that 3d rendering is going to be important to show that, you know, Honda. Same thing when Honda created motorcycles was really struggling getting his motorcycle to take off. And when he started doing renderings, what made his end, what made it in engine different through drawings? Guess what people fell in love with the product and started buying onto motorcycles. So it comes down to is there something here that we can’t tell just by a photo? So we again, we use it when it’s needed, and it’s gonna really help the product stand out? Or show the element that is hidden?

Unknown Speaker  1:05:43  

Okay, and let me see our last one. Last question we’ll do from Nicholas, if you had to choose between a pro photographer and a pro graphic artists, who would work on your math pictures, which would you go for?

Unknown Speaker  1:06:01  

Well, if you’re asking me, I’m gonna say, find a pro photographer that has a great infographic person that they work with. Because that doesn’t, that there’s no lag time, you know that there’s a great communication between the two of them, they get what the client wants, and they work faster. There’s a lot of photographers out there that don’t work with infographics, I however, like to have a team that I know like and trust, that when I work with and I shoot him a product, I kind of moved to the top of the list of their other clients, because they’re like, hey, Taylor just sent me this, I had this great relationship with her, I want to keep it going. So I’m gonna get this done right away for her. And I, you know, I think that and I work with infographics I trust that I know are going to do a great job and not, you know, take the client for a ride.

Unknown Speaker  1:06:46  

And one of the things of First of all, Nicholas, I like the combination of both. One thing to remember, especially when you’re working with a graphic artist, you really want to make sure that the aesthetics of the brand come across, or you’re not using, I’ve seen some really bad infographics where, you know, all of a sudden, you’ve got five different fonts in there. They’re all over the place, all different sizes, spacings, all out of whack. And it just looks it, you’ve got a great photograph you provide. But the info graph, or sorry, the graphic artist just doesn’t get it. So it is important to find a bit of both. And if you can find a photographer and a graphic artist or an editor all in one, that’s even better. So hopefully that answers your question. So I do have one last question. And this comes, what are the do’s and don’ts of product photography? And do you have any action steps that people can take? So there’s two questions. What are the do’s and don’ts? Yeah, so if somebody is doing this themselves, what do they have to be careful of?

Unknown Speaker  1:08:03  

Don’t over push the product. You mean, I’ve seen some clients, like they gotta get super close to the product to make it work. And they’ll shoot it. And it’s, it’s filling too much of the frame, right? negative space sells a product as well. So you want to fill the frame. But negative space allows the AI to stay on a product as well. So don’t feel like you know, you’ve got this bottom, from the top to the bottom, you need to fill it. And you know, take a couple different angles, step back and really look at this and go, Hey, if I actually leave a little negative space on the left, it’s caused me really to sound the product. So again, look at your eye where it’s falling, have your handful of people you know, to trust to look at the product and go, yeah, on this photo, I stay with it longer. You know, there’s like you were saying there’s other platforms out there, you can share an image and test it, but don’t. Don’t overthink it go in and just say hey, and then look at other lines that are similar to yours or other products you like and look at the angle of the photo, how was this shot? You know, and I helped a client that had product that could not get to my hands, it would have cost almost a half a million dollars to get the product to my hands. And so and because of COVID you know, she was like, is there a way we can figure this out? We did it through zoom. I was like you can hire me we can I can teach you how to do this through zoom. And we’re gonna teach you how to light it. We’re gonna teach you how to photograph this product. Because, again, you’re not going to spend a half million dollars to send me a product shoot. And and what she was able to do and throughout, you know, it took us about three weeks to get her her skill level where it needed to be. But she actually when we’re done on my vatha shot that I could actually say I did. So you did a great job doing that. So it’s actually being able to teach someone how to do that. So but again, how she was going at it, she was overthinking it. I was like step back step away from this and actually look at other products that are similar to this and let’s I’ll figure out the Lighting of it. You can show me a product I can figure out how it’s lit. And then let’s set your lights up like that and kind of work through that. That piece of it.

Unknown Speaker  1:10:08  

Alright, last question. How do people get a hold of you? What’s the best way?

Unknown Speaker  1:10:14  

The best way is either to go to my website Taylor Boone calm and it’s Taylor try LR b o n e.com. Or on Instagram at one Taylor boom. One Taylor boon. One Taylor Berman. Yeah, there’s other Taylor boons out there apparently on Instagram. Okay, so cows, What is the time? All right, you know what time it is? Right.

Unknown Speaker  1:10:54  

It’s the we’ll have Kelsey time is we got I think this is a record for the most entries we’ve had on the podcast. Wow. Yeah. So I am shuffling everyone’s names for those who entered. Two people even read it. I

Unknown Speaker  1:11:11  

couldn’t read the question before. How am I gonna read this?

Unknown Speaker  1:11:13  

Yeah. So if you take two people, we gave you an extra vote. But yeah, let’s do it. 3210. Who is it? Aaron? Darrin All right. Congrats there in a photo. Okay, congratulations. How does he claim his prize? Alright, so I guess if he can email me at K at lunch with norm calm? I’ll connect Darren Taylor. And then we could figure out that from there. But yeah, I’ll send an email. And we’ll

Unknown Speaker  1:11:54  

we’ll figure it out. All right, fantastic. So Taylor, thank you for coming on the podcast today.

Unknown Speaker  1:12:01  

Thank you both for having me. It was an thank you for patients getting getting on here. Oh, talk about something completely different.

Unknown Speaker  1:12:11  

Alright, and if you want to just stick around, we’ll end the live. And then if you want to just stay in the broadcast if you have nowhere else to go. We can talk after the podcast too. But yes, thank you. Thank you, Taylor. Thank you. Alright, so

Unknown Speaker  1:12:27  

I hope everybody enjoyed the podcast today you learned a little bit about productivity, as well as product photography. Kelsey, do you have anything coming up?

Unknown Speaker  1:12:37  

Okay, so do you want to talk about next week’s or Wednesday’s guest? Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  1:12:42  

So we saw Sumner Hobart coming on and YouTube star summary. Hobart I should be saying, and his wife, and Ollie. So it’s both Sumner and Allie that are coming on. So they’re teaming up on this? And I’m looking forward to it.

Unknown Speaker  1:13:00  

Yeah, they’re going to be talking about their husband and wife relationship and how they’ve worked as a team, with their business as well as they are. They love their living abroad too. So they’re going to tell us about their experience. And maybe other people can if they like that kind of lifestyle, what they can do, to do what they’re doing. And yeah, of course. Fatigue is coming. We need a clip of you dancing along with the music.

Unknown Speaker  1:13:29  

Yeah. Okay, that’ll happen. There we go. He’s coming. He’s coming down this weekend. So that’ll be good. Yeah, right, everybody. What are you gonna say? Well, you interrupt. Go ahead.

Unknown Speaker  1:13:40  

So you I haven’t posted yet. But for those of you in the Facebook group, we’re looking for a little FAQ, some people to answer some questions. So I’m going to put a post in the Facebook group. But if you’re interested in helping us out, comment in this section on the Facebook group. We’re just looking for people to ask some questions. To help. We’ve got three questions, actually. Yeah. So we just need we want to develop like an FAQ. And we need others to post it for us because we don’t want to post our own questions. So if you’re interested, look out for that post in the Facebook group. Let’s see lunch with norm Amazon FBA and e commerce. Click the and is it on Wednesday? Yes, the sooner and earlier coming on Wednesday. Yeah. Now I need to do my thing. No, not yet. And if you do have a guest suggestion, you can send it to me Caitlin’s with norm.com. We’re always looking for people great people for the show. So Amazon ecommerce. We love it. But uh, yeah, I think that’s about it. Now. No,

Unknown Speaker  1:14:50  

thank you. All right, everybody. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at noon, Eastern central time. Eastern Standard Time. And thank you for watching today. Show I hope you learned something. Thank you for being part of the community and enjoy the rest of your day.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai