Outdoor product photography offers dynamic images with different aesthetics by relating customers to their real-life situations. You get enough flexibility when you capture product photos in the studio or in a controlled environment.
But when you plan for outdoor photoshoots, working in a large space with natural lights, different weather conditions, shadows, and more is challenging. In such a situation, the right photography ideas and tips come in handy.
In order to assist you and make the pathway a memorable experience, we have created this article with all the creative and helpful product photography ideas and tips.
Without more intros, let’s get started!
Benefits Of Outdoor Product Photography
Outdoor product photography is more about shooting on a white background and studio lighting. It’s an incredible way to capture amazing commercial products in the natural light. From promoting e-commerce products for businesses to showcasing real-life experiences, outdoor shoots offer benefits, including:
1. Natural light
Natural light is the best source of adequate lighting, making your product more vibrant and true to life. Imagine a floral summer dress on a white background and compare it with an image of a girl wearing it on a beach and enjoying the beauty of nature. Which one does your heart go with?
The aesthetic and creativeness of natural light are hidden in golden hours because it is full of soft and even lighting without any harsh shadows and highlights. Professional product photographers prefer outdoor shoots at this time to highlight textures, details, and a more three-dimensional and tactile appearance.
2. Unique backgrounds
From natural landscapes to urban environments, outdoor photography enhances your e-commerce product. For example, a rugged outdoor setting expresses the product’s durability, and a sophisticated cityscape shoot represents its style.
Also, you get a variety of elements, like water, mountains, trees, and more, that enhance visual appeal and give a sense of scale and depth. Do you ever try to photograph products on natural reflective surfaces, like wet rocks or glassy ice? Natural reflections add symmetry and create interest in online shoppers.
3. Endless creativity
Like backgrounds, you get eye-soothing natural props and setups, like stones, sand, and more, that go with different types of product photography. When you photograph products in outdoor setups, they showcase how they are used in everyday life.
For example, Miss Dior’s extraordinary representation showcases perfumes, craftsmanship, and beauty. Do you sell eco-friendly products, or does your product include any organic ingredients? Natural representation helps you create a story around your product that entices buyers to click the image.
Whether you’re selling fashion items, outdoor gear, or lifestyle products, outdoor photography offers outstanding and timeless perspectives.
What kind of products can benefit from outdoor product shooting?
Some e-commerce platforms, like Amazon, use traditional white backgrounds for product listings. But that doesn’t mean you can’t incorporate outdoor settings to relate customers to their real-life experiences. Like indoor, outdoor shooting provides a context that helps to shine your products in all possible ways.
Worried thinking: do you shoot skin care products outdoors or other accessories? Well, there are lots of product items available, you can shoot in natural beauty, such as –
- Drinks and beverages.
- Vehicles, like cars, high-end automobiles, bicycles, bikes, etc.
- Fashion products, like shoes, clothes, etc.
- Beauty products.
- Cosmetics, like soap, shampoo, conditioners, etc.
- Bags, jewelry, perfumes, and more.
Get product ideas? Grab your camera and showcase your creativity with our sales-worthy product photography ideas!
Outdoor product photography ideas to boost sales
Outdoor commercial product photography’s ultimate goal is to make products look captivating to win customers’ trust and boost sales. That’s why professional product photographers utilize different hacks to showcase the best part of the product.
Here are a few product photography ideas for the outdoors that will help to make your products more appealing and engaging.
Individual shots
Top-rated fashion brands use individual shots to showcase products’ uniqueness. For these shots, utilize the rule of thirds and center framing both techniques work well to draw consumers’ attention to the focal point. Also, make your product photos more unique and eye-catching by placing them on one-third of the frame rather than at the center.
Group shots
Group shots feature the collection of items together in one frame. These types of shots are useful for advertising, catalogs, or online stores that provide customers with an overall product idea, whether it’s accessories, makeup items, drinks, or other goods.
Add reflections
Reflective surfaces add a new level to product photography and make it more impressive and professional. For this, you can utilize mirror or water reflections to highlight products’ special details, features, and textures.
Flat lay shots
Overhead shots or flat-lay photography is popular and hyped one in social media platforms and online marketplace for its aesthetic appeal. You can place the product with some color-contrasting props like rocks, sand, leaves, or others to grab customers’ attention.
Lifestyle shots
Do you want to communicate with your target customers via product photos? Lifestyle shots help you to provide context on products like clothes, bags, jewelry, and more. By doing so, you give consumers a detailed feature and size guide, as if they feel or wear those.
Pro Tip: If you want, you can shoot the product in action, like Nike, where celebrities and popular influencers go hiking, running, or biking by wearing shoes.
Close-up shots
When your ultimate goal is to highlight every detail of the products, including their texture, try macro photography. Accessories like jewelry, shoes, watches, or clothing are popular for shooting close-ups. Customers love these shots because they can view and feel them like a physical store.
Forest charm
The forest is rich with natural beauty and greenery, and you get amazing props and different lighting effects. You can place your product surrounded by trees and foliage to create a serene and organic backdrop. Overall, the forest settings enhance the product’s appeal.
Packaging shots
Want to establish a brand identity and increase customers’ trust? Packshot product photography helps you to highlight the packaging and labeling details that create an impression of our product.
Hanging shots
It is one of the best and most unique outdoor photography ideas. This style blends with lightweight products like clothing, shoes, or jewelry. Also, it gives customers a 360-degree view of the products, which boosts sales.
Commercial product ideas by subject
- Beauty product photography ideas: Beauty products are small, so to capture textures, details, and color shades utilize close-up shots.
- Skincare product photography ideas: Relate customers by using the product and giving a meaningful message about product features.
- Product photography ideas: When you want to shoot apparel, shoe photography, or other fashion products showcase products best part that builds trust.
Tips for Capturing Stunning Outdoor Shots
When you plan to shoot product photos outdoors, you need to consider several factors, such as –
Pre-Planning and Preparation
Whether you are doing outdoor skin care product photography, or other products, capturing stunning shots requires proper planning and preparation., such as –
- If possible, visit the location in advance to understand the landscape, lighting conditions, and potential shot angles.
- Always check the weather update to get the best natural light. A cloudy sky can offer soft and even lighting, while sunny or clear skies offer vibrant and sharp contrasts.
- Consider the season to capture Mother Nature’s breathtaking beauty with products. Suppose you plan to shoot apparel photos and take advantage of spring-blossoming flowers or autumn-rich colors.
- Plan your photography composition earlier and carry a first aid kit, plenty of water, and emergency gear (GPS or map) for remote locations.
- It’s wise to select a backup location for the product if conditions don’t cooperate.
Choose the Right Time
Natural light glow changes throughout the day. So, professional product photographers suggest shooting during the golden hour (Shortly after sunrise or before sunset) to get warm and soft lighting without harsh shadows.
Another best outdoor shooting time is the blue hour (before sunrise and after sunset) because it offers a cool and diffuse light that gives a serene atmosphere. However, you can also experience overcast days for product photography to get even lighting. The diffuse light on cloudy days is the perfect combination to highlight every detail and feature of products without overexposure.
Work with the environment, not against it
Want to create a more even illumination? Reflectors can help you by bouncing light back onto your products and filling in shadows. As you know, diffusers soften harsh sunlight, prevent overexposure, and help maintain highlights and shadows.
Sometimes, you might face unwanted weather conditions or be affected by heavy wind. To cope with this situation, use clamps or weights and be prepared with protective covers. The outdoor environment is full of scale and proportion to product photography. So, try to capture its beauty and relate it to your products.
Choose the right gear
Natural light management is quite a challenging task compared to artificial light. So, to capture high-quality outdoor commercial photography, the most important equipments are:
- Lens: No matter how good or expensive your camera is, without a quality lens, you can’t capture amazing product images. So, select the best lens for product photography to narrow down your product’s unique features and details. You can use a zoom lens because of its adjustable focal lengths. But for jewelry or perfumes, use a macro lens.
- Camera: Like a lens, you need to buy the best camera for product photography so that you can adjust white balance, aperture adjustments, and more. Remember to turn off your flash setting when adjusting the natural light and set it to Raw if the feature is available.
- Tripod: Without a tripod, your product image might end up blurry. So, to maintain image quality, use a tripod. But for flat-lay photography, use a sturdy tripod.
- Filter: Cameras often fail to capture the sky’s vivid color and leave behind a dull version. To avoid this situation, use polarizing filters that give the exact view of how your eyes observe it. Also, you can effectively erase the reflection or glare issues.
- Diffuser: Sunlight is more harsh than artificial light and doesn’t spread evenly. So, use a diffuser to soften the light and spread it evenly.
- Reflector: In outdoor photoshoots, you get an abundance of light and the direct sunlight might cause deep shadows that affect your image. So, use a reflector to manage the shadow issues.
Composition and Lighting
Use the rule of thirds to create balanced and visually appealing images. This composition rule involves dividing an image into nine equal parts (3 horizontal and 3 vertical lines). This technique draws viewers’ eyes to the focal point of the product image. So, pay attention to what’s behind and in front of your product to avoid a cluttered background.
Another key part of jaw-dropping photos is balancing product photography lighting. Natural light is the best source to produce lifelike images and boost sales. So, take advantage of natural sunlight to get an optimal lighting source. If you have a budget, you can invest in artificial light for low light photography – for example, two softbox light setups.
Experiment with Angles
The more you reveal new perspectives and the product’s appearance, the more online shoppers love your product and get the confidence to buy it. Multiple images taken from different angles and vantage points make it more attractive and give customers a hint of what they will get after purchasing.
Some important outdoor vantage points for product photoshoots are –
- High shots from an elevated position.
- Low shots from a position below the product or closer to the ground
- low shot or subject’s eye level provides a human eye-level view.
Important angles for shooting outdoor product photos are:
- The front angle represents the product’s front side.
- The back angle showcases the products’ backside.
- Profile angle highlights product side (perfect for shoe photography).
- Macro angles or close-up shots capture the fine details of the products.
- The top angle view offers a broad overview that is best for flat lay clothing photography.
- 45-degree angle shows multiple sides of a product.
- Worm eye viewpoints the camera toward the sky from the ground level.
Use Props
- Flowers
- Leaves
- Fruits
- Sand
- Shells
- Rocks, and more.
Find the Best Background
The right background plays a vital role when it comes to outdoor photoshooting. The background can steal the focus on the product or enhance the overall outlook. Choose a dynamic foreground to add dimensions, like forests, flowers, or rocks. If you try wide-angle shots, this can provide you with a more immersive and 3D look. Also, you can use natural objects like arches or branches to “frame the scene” or look for leading lines, like roads, fences, or even shadows.
Want to play with symmetry and patterns to reflect the surrounding landscape? Capture waves in the sand, rows of trees, or other repeating patterns or incorporate them with movement. Time-lapses or long exposures can turn movement clouds into soft streaks. Must avoid busy backgrounds to leverage natural colors.
Post-processing
Indoor or outdoor, whatever you plan for shooting product photos, post-processing gives a finishing and professional touch. You can convert an average image quality into pro-level with consistent lighting, positioning, and the best styling across all products. That’s why brands to photographers outsource photo editing services to get numerous and high-quality Photoshop editing services, such as –
Background removal
Does the background steal your product’s main focus, or do you want to remove the busy ones? Photoshop professionals offer you hand-curved background removal services to remove distractions in your images. From background replacement to background merging, you get everything you need when you outsource photo editing services that help convert viewers into potential clients.
Color correction
Bring out the true beauty and vibrancy in your images with color correction and photo editing services. As per statistics, 35% of online shoppers returned an item because it looked different from the e-commerce shop than in person. With these editing services, you get lighting, white balance, tone, clarity, and overall aesthetics that boost sales.
Shadow creation
Want to impress your online buyers with realistic-looking product images? Shadow creation service gives your 2D white background images a 3D realistic outlook that attracts more buyers. From natural shadow creation to reflection shadow, more services are available.
Apart from those professional photo editing services, providers offer you image resizing, retouching, e-commerce photo editing, and other services to make your product e-commerce worthy.
Frequently Asked Questions About Shoe Photography
What’s the Best Time of Day for Outdoor Product Photography?
The golden hour (after sunrise and before sunset) and the blue hour (before sunrise and after sunset) are the best times for outdoor product photoshoots. These times are perfect for soft and diffused lighting without harsh shadows.
Conclusion
Outdoor product photography is the creative art of utilizing natural resources. We hope by following the tips and ideas outlined above, you can showcase your product in the best limelight and engage your audience effectively.
Happy clicking!
