Improvement on this image.

A

AndyG123

Messages
398
Name
Andy
Edit My Images
Yes
https://flic.kr/p/24fXe9i

I've took this image today, I think I had my camera at 100iso on a tripod, shooting at 1/8th at f7.1
I've gone for off camera flash, this is bouncing off the wall behind me to blow out the exposure in the mirror.. With a few tweaks in lightroom I am happy with the color. On Tuesday back at work I will be working with more glossy panels which may pose a problem... I'm thinking of a screen with my camera popping out to hide my camera and hide myself but wanting not to go in withoit any advice on problems I may have.
 
dinorock said:
here you go in my opinion its a bit stark and would put me off as a buyer (if your selling)hth Mike
DSC_3159 by Andrew Gray, on Flickr
Click to expand...
Thanks.
I've got towels I can play with and some accessories, bath racks etc, unfortunately the back wall with the mirror I can't attach anything on, as these panels are interchangeable. The mirror is ceiling suspended and it's wire phoroshopped out.
 
based on the statement about the mirror it's hanging away from the wall and leaving an odd shadow at the bottom towels over the bath soap on sink even if a brand new still in the box type thing will add to the interest hth mike also the angle on the bath seems "odd"
 
What's the shot for?
 
Sorry, but its not a good image.

My initial reaction is that its stark and boring.

Look a moment longer and you soon notice that it its dull, dark, colour balance is out and its probably had loads of photoshop work on it.

It almost looks CGI'd.
 
Sorry but I agree with @riddel, it looks to me like the output from CAD package, there is something odd about the corner of the path panel at the bottom. I think you need to shoot from further right so the side of the bath and the side of the wash stand are seen
 
Garry Edwards said:
What's the shot for?
Click to expand...
The shot is for bathroom cladding, at the moment images of these products are thumbnails of the product. Our website actually has no roomset images.

The panel has not been photoshopped, the flooring has been photoshopped in. The fight I'm having is firstly the mirror, the reflective nature of the panels, and trying to show mainly the wall with the mirror on. As the other wall is a fixed wall which is not interchangeble.
 
AndyG123 said:
The shot is for bathroom cladding, at the moment images of these products are thumbnails of the product. Our website actually has no roomset images.

The panel has not been photoshopped, the flooring has been photoshopped in. The fight I'm having is firstly the mirror, the reflective nature of the panels, and trying to show mainly the wall with the mirror on. As the other wall is a fixed wall which is not interchangeble.
Click to expand...

I was just looking at the floor - it looks like it's casting a shadow on the bath making it look like the bath is below the floor in the foreground - it's created an illusion.

The front of the basin cabinet looks like it could be missing some shadow at the bottom.
 
This panel I have used was purely for a setup to see how it works etc... Some shadow will have been lost on the flooring, I agree with the angle of the bath, the bath does actually taper down, and because.of the angle of the shot you cant see this and it looks wrong. The company I work for has little money to throw at marketing. So I've kinda took an office to make into a studio for no cost, hence this been the room, the room has a blue carpet. If I use flooring it is going to cost £200 to floor the area with the products we sell, and it needs to be interchangeable. So photoshop ping the flooring is kinda what I'm left with.
When I do the full shoot I will spend more time doing shadow work on the floor etx...
 
Thanks guys for the feedback, it's appreciated, the more things. I have to work at on Tuesday the better to get everything sorted..


An example of some of the heavily marketed companies with very very professional shots here from a company called Vox panels, we are stockists of these guys.
vox_motivo_pezzo_4_pack.jpg
 
AndyG123 said:
The shot is for bathroom cladding, at the moment images of these products are thumbnails of the product. Our website actually has no roomset images.

The panel has not been photoshopped, the flooring has been photoshopped in. The fight I'm having is firstly the mirror, the reflective nature of the panels, and trying to show mainly the wall with the mirror on. As the other wall is a fixed wall which is not interchangeble.
Click to expand...
OK, now that I know that the subject is the cladding and that the photo is supposed to illustrate it, I can tell you what you already know - it isn't good enough:)
1. Mirror first, as that seems to be what's bothering you... Just do what your competitors have done, and photoshop in a fake reflection.
2. Make it look real, add odds and sods such as bottles of (expensive) consumables, e.g. shampoo, handwash, maybe put a good quality towel in too. Always go for expensive looking stuff, it will raise the perceived value of your own product.
3. Deal with the things that other people have mentioned, such as the odd shadow under the mirror, and the things that they haven't mentioned, such as the lack of sealant around the bath.
4. Light your cladding much more evenly - not totally, because that will look false and unattractive, but at least light it from one side, so that the tone is graduated in an uneven sort of way.
5. Use MUCH harder lighting, your flat lighting doesn't make anyone want to look at the image..
6. Don't use that bath with the sloping panel, it may be right, but it looks wrong and takes the eye away from what you want them to look at.
7. If you think that you're struggling with the reflective panels, just read this tutorial https://www.lencarta.com/studio-lighting-blog/controlling-specular-reflections/#.VjzW6ysl-hE and then read this one https://www.lencarta.com/studio-lighting-blog/combining-lighting-techniques-part-1/#.VjzTHisl-hF
8. Tell your firm to spend some money, it they want sales. There's a reason why other people do.
 
For me, the lack of colour is a problem. Everything in the room is bland, either beige or grey. Is it worth considering a more contrasty floor or bath panel colour, or darker shades? As it is, the wall panels just look like everything else in the room. I have no idea looking at the image what I am supposed to be paying most attention to.

Also I think some hint at 'practical' lighting might be to your advantage as no one has bathrooms as evenly lit as this, most bathroom light for safety comes down from the ceiling, yet the ceiling here is the darkest area and the floor surface is the brightest bit. No light at all seems associated with the ceiling in any way. So is it worth considering putting in fake 'practical' lighting as if from the ceiling and falling down the wall, to highlight the wall colour and any texture the panels might have?

Viewing this as a possible customer, I don't find the Vox photo remotely appealing either (so its maybe an industry thing rather than your photo thing). Ultimately to me neither of the sample images is selling a 'mood' or any sense of desirability or aspiration. Both images look bleak and on the cheap side.

Speaking strictly as a 'customer' I would prefer to see 2 photos of this product - 1 a well lit record shot of the panel surface alone so I could see exactly what I was getting and 1 of the panel in place with mood lighting, colour, accessories - basically show as part of a nice attractive bathroom I would wish to aspire to, rather than as something that looks like an easy clean public loo.

Having said all that, I think you are doing well so far in your attempts to replicate something similar to the Vox image and you are clearly getting there gradually. Well done.

The thing I would question most - is the Vox image the right image to replicate? Will an image such as that make people see these panels as desirable? Personally I think not, but thats just me. To some degree it depends if you are selling strictly to tradespeople or if these images will ever be shown in any context to the final owner of the bathroom as part of a sell. To me the VOX image looks done on the cheap, the product looks cheap - could your company use that negative aspect of a competitors advertising and make your own product look the better option?

I think before proceeding further I would be looking around at high end websites that sell bathrooms or bathroom tiles, looking for more imaginative and appealing sample photos to use for inspiration in lighting. Think product 'sexiness' or 'aspirational lifestyle'. Even people buying cheap products want things to look expensive and nice. Cameras lie well, so an expensive looking shot does not necessary have to be more expensive to produce.

I just did an ultra fast search for tiles and bathroom equipment and these are not the best images I am sure, but they are more engaging and show more interesting styling and lighting. Other searches could do better....! :)

http://www.toppstiles.co.uk
and for selling 'lifestyle' and good lighting effects (lighting which could be applied to any type of styling however cheap)
http://www.hugooliver.com/inspiration/styles/minimalist-bathroom-design

I also note after this quick look around, many site images do not show the entire room/entire wall in each shot. This would tie in with having a record shot of the panel, then putting in a 'desirability shot' of say the edge of a sink and a bit of wall panel and some classy accessory. This might help keep costs down as you could use lots of bits the same bathroom suite in seemingly different settings, can use fewer accessories over a greater number of images and it won't have the boring drabness of using the same room setting with just a different panel. People will get bored of looking at near identical shots over and over, doing bits of a bathroom will break up that issue.

As they say, sell the sizzle, not just the sausage.
 
Last edited:
Cheers guys, unfortunately the bath I have I'm stuck with but I can accessorize, -the mirror shadow can be fixed with 2 studs to stop it tilting..
As for the flooring, I can change the color in photoshop. I will definitely try lotions etc and soaps...

The Grey panel on the side I am stuck with as this is fixed, but the background panel is changeable. We have a range of 40 panels all different colors and style...
The reason I chose the angle I went for because it shows the full wall of the panel I want to display and minimal of the Grey wall.
 
MidnightUK said:
For me, the lack of colour is a problem. Everything in the room is bland, either beige or grey. Is it worth considering a more contrasty floor or bath panel colour, or darker shades? As it is, the wall panels just look like everything else in the room. I have no idea looking at the image what I am supposed to be paying most attention to.

Also I think some hint at 'practical' lighting might be to your advantage as no one has bathrooms as evenly lit as this, most bathroom light for safety comes down from the ceiling, yet the ceiling here is the darkest area and the floor surface is the brightest bit. No light at all seems associated with the ceiling in any way. So is it worth considering putting in fake 'practical' lighting as if from the ceiling and falling down the wall, to highlight the wall colour and any texture the panels might have?

Viewing this as a possible customer, I don't find the Vox photo remotely appealing either (so its maybe an industry thing rather than your photo thing). Ultimately to me neither of the sample images is selling a 'mood' or any sense of desirability or aspiration. Both images look bleak and on the cheap side.

Speaking strictly as a 'customer' I would prefer to see 2 photos of this product - 1 a well lit record shot of the panel surface alone so I could see exactly what I was getting and 1 of the panel in place with mood lighting, colour, accessories - basically show as part of a nice attractive bathroom I would wish to aspire to, rather than as something that looks like an easy clean public loo.

Having said all that, I think you are doing well so far in your attempts to replicate something similar to the Vox image and you are clearly getting there gradually. Well done.

The thing I would question most - is the Vox image the right image to replicate? Will an image such as that make people see these panels as desirable? Personally I think not, but thats just me. To me the VOX image looks done on the cheap, the product looks cheap - could your company use that negative aspect of a competitors advertising and make your own product look the better option?

I think before proceeding further I would be looking around at high end websites that sell bathrooms or bathroom tiles, looking for more imaginative and appealing sample photos to use for inspiration in lighting. Think product 'sexiness' or 'aspirational lifestyle'. Even people buying cheap products want things to look expensive and nice. Cameras lie well, so an expensive looking shot does not necessary have to be more expensive to produce.

I just did an ultra fast search for tiles and bathroom equipment and these are not the best images I am sure, but they are more engaging and show more interesting styling and lighting. Other searches could do better....! :)

http://www.toppstiles.co.uk
and for selling 'lifestyle' and good lighting effects
http://www.hugooliver.com/inspiration/styles/minimalist-bathroom-design

I also note after this quick look around, many site images do not show the entire room/entire wall in each shot. This would tie in with having a record shot of the panel, then putting in a 'desirability shot' of say the edge of a sink and a bit of wall panel and some classy accessory. This might help keep costs down as you could use lots of bits the same bathroom suite in seemingly different settings, can use fewer accessories over a greater number of images and it won't have the boring drabness of using the same room setting with just a different panel. People will get bored of looking at near identical shots over and over, doing bits of a bathroom will break up that issue.

As they say, sell the sizzle, not just the sausage.
Click to expand...
Basically, we're saying exactly the same.
MidnightUK said:
Speaking strictly as a 'customer' I would prefer to see 2 photos of this product - 1 a well lit record shot of the panel surface alone so I could see exactly what I was getting and 1 of the panel in place with mood lighting, colour, accessories - basically show as part of a nice attractive bathroom I would wish to aspire to, rather than as something that looks like an easy clean public loo.
Click to expand...
They all do seem to rely on a bland, flat-lit photo of the actual cladding, roomsets seem to be considered to be far less important. Whether that's the right approach or not, I can't say but I do understand it, because roomsets always raise a potential problem of taste - i.e. if the customer doesn't like the taste, or style of the room, then they won't consider buying the actual product. To overcome that, photography often tends to be bland, so that nobody's taste can be offended. This of course is very common in other areas too, for example mainstream political parties try to appeal to every voter and to be on everyone's side, with the result that they all seem to be the same as each other and to have no unique selling point. To overcome that problem, when I did (an enormous amount of) bed photography, I tended to use fairly bland furnishings, wall colours etc but would have an attractive female model for the cover shot, and maybe in one or two other places as well, someone maybe 10 years younger and a bit thinner than the typical target customer, so that she could identify with the product that we were selling.
AndyG123 said:
Cheers guys, unfortunately the bath I have I'm stuck with but I can accessorize, -the mirror shadow can be fixed with 2 studs to stop it tilting..
As for the flooring, I can change the color in photoshop. I will definitely try lotions etc and soaps...
Click to expand...
No, you're not stuck with the bath, and you need to change it. What you seem to be stuck with is an employer who doesn't value your efforts and who won't spend any money. Tell them to get another bath.
I'm not suggesting that you're a bad photographer, and I don't think that anyone is suggesting that either. Your problem is that you don't understand commercial photography, i.e. you don't know how to produce a photo that sells, and this is a learned skill, not some kind of black magic, so you can get there.
What also doesn't help is that the product you're trying to sell is visually unattractive and boring - it's a piece of cake to produce fantastic shots of expensive clothes, just stick them on the right model, the potential customers then relate to the model and convince themselves that they will look just like her if they buy the clothes, it's an easy sell. But a lot of products are boring, but they still have to be sold. When I was working with Lencarta, I had to photograph black flash heads, the almost total lack of colour meant that I had to get the angles and the lighting exactly right, so that they didn't look like black blobs, and you need the same approach with your work.

We're all different, but for me, what makes a bathroom attractive is warmth, I like it hot in there but everything in your picture says that it's cold, sterile and somewhere to get out of as quickly as possible. You've got loads of different claddings, so why not use strong, warm colours for your roomset photos? What I think I would do is to do exactly the same shot for every single cladding option, so that people can see how good their own bathroom would look with each choice, but the ones that I would feature (front page) would be the bold, warm colours. So, developing on my accessories suggestion, I would use warm, bold colours, e.g. red, yellow, orange, and avoid cool colours such as blue, green, beige, grey for the cosmetics, towel etc. And you can also add a bit of sex, in the form of a sexy bathrobe, maybe dropped on the floor.
 
Last edited:
Garry Edwards said:
roomsets always raise a potential problem of taste - i.e. if the customer doesn't like the taste, or style of the room, then they won't consider buying the actual product.
Click to expand...

I can see where you are coming from. Having said that I would not buy from the sample photos and I have just done up a house. The products look cheap, so I assume they are also poorly made. It does make me wonder if small sample photos of bits of bathroom would help, as the same panel could be styled in more than one way, to please more customers.

Ultimately the issue is perhaps the business owner does not believe good advertising will increase sales enough to be worthwhile, despite the quantity of money spent on advertising by nationally successful companies - or they just cannot finance it if money is tight... which it is for many firms these days. In which case they are between a rock and a hard place. As is the OP.
 
MidnightUK said:
<snip>

Speaking strictly as a 'customer' I would prefer to see 2 photos of this product - 1 a well lit record shot of the panel surface alone so I could see exactly what I was getting and 1 of the panel in place with mood lighting, colour, accessories - basically show as part of a nice attractive bathroom I would wish to aspire to, rather than as something that looks like an easy clean public loo.

<snip>
Click to expand...

This is it for me, a classic case of the sausage and the sizzle. Apologies for using that phrase twice in one week, but it's a very common dilemma - both are very important, but it's rare to be able to cover both in one shot without so much compromise that it fails to deliver on both counts.
 
We have products from our own manufacturers, and products from our suppliers (Vox) vox is more expensive, it's a more fragile product than our own, some of their designs are very similar to ours, but vox sells more.
The only difference is our own products are sold using a thumbnail of the product which shows the color of the product. And vox has the room set images. Which do seem to make a difference in this industry.
I know a lot of the panels to everyone's taste, but the images I want to get are to show the panels without showing the flash etc... Like in the below example of someone else' image on the industry...
New_Sparkle2.jpg


So many shots have these horrible Reflections. Which is what I'm trying to avoid. I do like shadow, but feel a too hard shadow in this environment looks unnatural.. Really a tricky one to nail.
 
To me the perspective of the floor on the first image looks wrong. At the closest end of the bath it looks like it's halfway up the bath, and at the bottom of the cabinet, it makes the cabinet look warped at the bottom right corner. With the mirror, just photoshop in a fake reflection, as already suggested. Perhaps also a blob of bluetack on the bottom right corner of the mirror to keep it against the wall. IMO a wider lens might help too.
 
AndyG123 said:
I tried this with my 35mm and had to drop to 18, this is as wide as I can go and that's me pinned against the wall pretty much.
Click to expand...

You could always try stitching two shots together. I photographed some interiors while living in Qatar for building companies and an hotel and used stitching on a couple of images when I had the same problem in small rooms. It worked OK.
 
Last edited:
OP I am not saying your firms panels ARE cheap and nasty, they are probably fine, its the images your industry are using that is making product look poor.

My sympathy to the OP in general over the technical difficulties of this shoot. I used to take pictures of interiors for a public body I used to work for, not as my job but as an 'add on' to my usual duties occasionally during works time. People dont have a clue how hard it is to get decent photos or how long it takes, or indeed what impact good and bad photos have. I got grief from my boss that it took most of a work day to photography a multi-room site and exterior, even though that also included driving around 65 to 70 miles just to visit the site.

Almost no one understands how hard it is to photograph things to high standard until they try themselves. It can be very fulfilling when something comes out looking well though.
 
MidnightUK said:
I can see where you are coming from. Having said that I would not buy from the sample photos and I have just done up a house. The products look cheap, so I assume they are also poorly made. It does make me wonder if small sample photos of bits of bathroom would help, as the same panel could be styled in more than one way, to please more customers.

Ultimately the issue is perhaps the business owner does not believe good advertising will increase sales enough to be worthwhile, despite the quantity of money spent on advertising by nationally successful companies - or they just cannot finance it if money is tight... which it is for many firms these days. In which case they are between a rock and a hard place. As is the OP.
Click to expand...
Agreed
aliengrove said:
To me the perspective of the floor on the first image looks wrong. At the closest end of the bath it looks like it's halfway up the bath, and at the bottom of the cabinet, it makes the cabinet look warped at the bottom right corner. With the mirror, just photoshop in a fake reflection, as already suggested. Perhaps also a blob of bluetack on the bottom right corner of the mirror to keep it against the wall. IMO a wider lens might help too.
Click to expand...
Wrong, it needs a longer lens, not a wider one.
AndyG123 said:
I tried this with my 35mm and had to drop to 18, this is as wide as I can go and that's me pinned against the wall pretty much.
Click to expand...
You're making your life impossible. In such a small space, I couldn't do any better than you. Roomsets need to be photographed in a massive space, not a tiny one. You need to build the bathroom in the corner of a large space, such as a warehouse, it's impossible to light it correctly if you don't, and also impossible to get the correct perspective.
AndyG123 said:
We have products from our own manufacturers, and products from our suppliers (Vox) vox is more expensive, it's a more fragile product than our own, some of their designs are very similar to ours, but vox sells more.
The only difference is our own products are sold using a thumbnail of the product which shows the color of the product. And vox has the room set images. Which do seem to make a difference in this industry.
I know a lot of the panels to everyone's taste, but the images I want to get are to show the panels without showing the flash etc... Like in the below example of someone else' image on the industry...
New_Sparkle2.jpg


So many shots have these horrible Reflections. Which is what I'm trying to avoid. I do like shadow, but feel a too hard shadow in this environment looks unnatural.. Really a tricky one to nail.
Click to expand...
This photo is terrible, it looks like my cat took it with my iphone, which is saying something as I don't have either a cat or an iphone...
If this is the standard of photography considered to be acceptable in your industry, then either the industry is such a niche market that it isn't worth being in, or there is a wonderful opportunity for anyone who goes about the job properly.
My guess is that your competitors are either getting Bob in the warehouse to do their photography because he has a good camera, or they've gone to the local wedding and portrait photographer who also claims to be a specialist in product photography. A real professional, i.e. someone who specialises in furniture photography, would have no problem controlling the reflections, and would also know that it's just as important to have areas that are not lit at all as it is to have areas that are brightly lit, it's all about creating the right type of shadows, from the right direction, in the right places.

There is absolutely no reason why you can't learn the skills yourself, but it will take time, experimentation, the right equipment, and understanding of what motivates people to buy, and of course the space in which to do it.
 
Last edited:
MidnightUK said:
OP I am not saying your firms panels ARE cheap and nasty, they are probably fine, its the images your industry are using that is making product look poor.

My sympathy to the OP in general over the technical difficulties of this shoot. I used to take pictures of interiors for a public body I used to work for, not as my job but as an 'add on' to my usual duties occasionally during works time. People dont have a clue how hard it is to get decent photos or how long it takes, or indeed what impact good and bad photos have. I got grief from my boss that it took most of a work day to photography a multi-room site and exterior, even though that also included driving around 65 to 70 miles just to visit the site.

Almost no one understands how hard it is to photograph things to high standard until they try themselves. It can be very fulfilling when something comes out looking well though.
Click to expand...

So true. How hard can it be? You've got a good camera, just press the bluddy tit man. I could do it in ten seconds with my iPhone :eek:
 
Another thought, if you put expensive looking accessories in, keep an eye on any with gold or silver metallic on the packaging as it can reflect and look luxurious or it can look very flat and dull.

Also, keep going and don't loose faith in yourself. You are trying to do a very hard task in difficult conditions.
 
Last edited:
AndyG123 said:
I tried this with my 35mm and had to drop to 18, this is as wide as I can go and that's me pinned against the wall pretty much.
Click to expand...

Sounds to me like the studio space available is far too small for comfort, you always need far more space to get the right viewpoint and place the light than for the subject space itself and as much height as possible. Normally 3 to 1 absolute minimum. Most studios I have worked in have been more like 5 to one and greater. For room sets that can be very large indeed.
 
Oh I know you didn't mean the panels looked cheap (to be honest I'd go for tiles any day of the week) their sold as an easier cheaper alternative to tiles which turn out to be not as robust and not actually cheaper. Once you buy trims etc...
But yeah I was doing some hardware shots, I've got a small light box with a flash behind to fully blow out the background to make it white, an Off Camera flash set up and the camera on a tripod for a consistent shot. The Managing director walking past says "there's all kinds of effects you can do on the iPhone X for that"

That's what I'm dealing with... My job is actually website design. As add on to my job I am doing this work as I enjoy it. And also migrating a database for a £12,000,000+ company from one accounts package to another.. Just because I'm competant with excel...
 
Following this thread and reading the importance to a commercial business, I just simply wonder why you don't get a proper commercial photographer to shoot everything for you properly.

They'll have all the skill and equipment to supply you commercial grade images.

In the long run it will be cheaper and easier and having poor, amateur looking images will ultimately damage the business and hence sales.
 
AndyG123 said:
Oh I know you didn't mean the panels looked cheap
Click to expand...
Good.

AndyG123 said:
The Managing director walking past says "there's all kinds of effects you can do on the iPhone X for that"
Click to expand...
At times its hard to even feel angry about these flip, ignorant statements as the sayer is often so unaware, that they think they are being helpful instead of naive and insulting.

AndyG123 said:
That's what I'm dealing with... My job is actually website design. As add on to my job I am doing this work as I enjoy it. And also migrating a database for a £12,000,000+ company from one accounts package to another.. Just because I'm competent with excel...
Click to expand...
Yes I used to enjoy the photo related stuff. The final straw for me was when one of the managers started grilling me about what I was doing taking a photo of a friend/workmate with my own camera in my own break time. That and other unreasonable expectations cost them hundreds of pounds as they had to get in a semi pro to do the photos after that and got hardly any images of only 2 locations instead of 5..... I was dead pleased when they were poor quality too!

Aside from my whinges about my past, if they will let you do just sections of a room/porcelainware as your 'posh shots' you will need a lot less space, a less wide lens and will solve a lot of reflection and distortion issues. Oh and you could possibly dump the mirror and suspend a shelf or a plant hanger or something on the wall instead, to hold more interesting decorations and dispose of reflection issues.

Sincerely wish you good luck with this project and it would be really nice if you could update us all about how its going, as lots of people who read the forum can learn from your project.
 
Last edited:
riddell said:
I just simply wonder why you don't get a proper commercial photographer to shoot everything for you properly.
Click to expand...
Looks like firms in this market all cheapskate on photography, so there is no quality bar to try to meet in literature or website publications.
I would presume either profits are very low, wallets are very tight or they believe more than enough people will still buy low quality looking products :)

Tile companies from my ultra quick search earlier seem to be much more customer aware / are more competitive with each other over being seen to sell good quality products.
 
Last edited:
MidnightUK said:
Looks like firms in this market all cheapskate on photography, so there is no quality bar to try to meet in literature or website publications.
I would presume either profits are very low, wallets are very tight or they believe more than enough people will still buy low quality looking products :)

Tile companies from my ultra quick search earlier seem to be much more customer aware / are more competitive with each other over being seen to sell good quality products.
Click to expand...
This market is quite niche, it's big, but niche in the area its targeted... A lot of UK companies buy in from China who then brand as their own (which we do). Which is what I need images of.
The margin on these products is phenomenal but for some reason the guys who pull the purse strings in the UK on this are happy with the 50% - 70% margin and don't want to dig into that with professional shots. It really is crazy and very old fashioned how the industry runs. Really appreciate all of your feedback and criticism though.

I will try and dig out some shots which my company director paid for before me starting when I'm at work... He came in with a suit and a dslr left with £1000 and in return provided 50 unusable images which will "get you on top of Google"
 
AndyG123 said:
shots which my company director paid for before me starting when I'm at work... He came in with a suit and a dslr left with £1000 and in return provided 50 unusable images which will "get you on top of Google"
Click to expand...

Any idea how your director selected this photographer? Was this guys website representative of his work? Actually writing this I wonder as 'anyone can take a photo' if he just picked someone who had a camera, yet no experience and did not put much research into finding a photographer. Its a bit depressing really - if folks think higher end photography needs no skills, then I guess they wont put much time into researching those they hire and will then look down with contempt on 'pros' when it all goes pear shaped.

Still, its good news for you OP as you clearly wish to do better with the photos and the precedent does not sound too daunting!
 
I'd bet that the company has a selection of the competition's brochures somewhere. If you're lucky, they'll have used a pro rather than keeping it in house and you might even be lucky enough to find his name credited somewhere. Hire him/her!
 
AndyG123 said:
This market is quite niche, it's big, but niche in the area its targeted... A lot of UK companies buy in from China who then brand as their own (which we do). Which is what I need images of.
The margin on these products is phenomenal but for some reason the guys who pull the purse strings in the UK on this are happy with the 50% - 70% margin and don't want to dig into that with professional shots. It really is crazy and very old fashioned how the industry runs. Really appreciate all of your feedback and criticism though.

I will try and dig out some shots which my company director paid for before me starting when I'm at work... He came in with a suit and a dslr left with £1000 and in return provided 50 unusable images which will "get you on top of Google"
Click to expand...
Well, sadly not atypical, but illogical. Don't they realise that the reason why their competitors do better is because they try harder, and market what is effectively the same products better?
AndyG123 said:
The bloke came in with a suit and a dslr
just found them....
selection of £1000 worth of images.


https://imgur.com/a/pxTst
Click to expand...
Pretty typical. The way things have gone in the last couple of years or so, website developers who used to be able to con SME's to pay them for poor work have moved to conning them into believing that they can get them to the top of Google, and this often includes providing a totally amateur photography 'service' at pro prices.
This is one of the things that I'm talking about in this thread https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/t...-and-helping-photographers-to-improve.675608/ where a company hires a so-called photographer who produces rubbish, so the company then assumes that professional photography is both unecessary and overpriced, so does it in house.

If what you've hinted about your employer is correct then you're wasting your time, because they don't seem to value either photography or you - but I think that I'd have a detailed, frank discussion with them and tell them that you can (learn to) take photos that will sell for them, but in return they will have to spend money on building a bathroom into the corner of a large building, buying the right accessories and possibly buying some lighting equipment.
 
Garry Edwards said:
Pretty typical. The way things have gone in the last couple of years or so, website developers who used to be able to con SME's to pay them for poor work have moved to conning them into believing that they can get them to the top of Google, and this often includes providing a totally amateur photography 'service' at pro prices.
Click to expand...

Oi! That's what the market asked for, they don't care about coding standards, they want to do it as cheaply and quickly as possible and they never *EVER* plan properly.

So they got what they wanted (and deserved).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top