Go to an internet store, any store, and it’s mostly the same thing. Click through products at different stores and with a few subtle differences, it’s mainly the same thing. It’s getting very difficult to differentiate one’s self with an online store.
I’m working on another ecommerce store and instead of being the designer/creator of the store, I’m officially becoming the photographer. I’m taking my own product photos to differentiate the store from the distributors website, but mainly to give the site personality. I have already begun the process of ordering all the products (About 20 at a time) and taking pictures/video of them.
Sometimes the promotional photos provided by the manufacturer is good enough to explain the product, so I won’t take photos of EVERYTHING….however I want a good majority of the site to have the photos taken.
FOR EXAMPLE:
In the pranks section of the site, there is a novelty fake cigar. Here is the provided photo for the fake cigar:
Now here is an “action shot” picture I took with the fake cigar:
Goofy! But explains the product much better. Notice the lack of photo editing. I’ve been purposely making these photos very amateur-ish. I’ve been taking 3 added photos of each product which will make it amusing for customers to browse the site, and give them a better sense of the product they’re buying.
I am hoping to build a popular feature much like ThinkGeek.com’s “Customer Action Shots” feature.
One problem is I’ve been finding it difficult to take unique pictures without the assitance of someone else, so I bought this awesome GorillaPod which is a tripod with bendable legs:
Since I usually take these pictures in spare time, I can’t always have someone around. However I can clamp this GorillaPod thing to the side of a door, fan, guitar…you name it and get a great shot!