Monthly Photo Shoots
Every single month at Choco le`a, we launch new products!
In small business, you must stay innovative to stay in business. Our loyal customers and chocolate friends look forward to something new every month and we call this our seasonal special menu.
In addition to our year-round signature favorites, we offer approximately 7 new/rotating specials every single month which means we need to take new photos, write up new descriptions, make new signs, update the website, our display case, and let everyone know about it.
It’s a lot of work and it’s a process, but we love to do it for our chocolate friends. If you do something similar in your work, here are our tips on how we make this happen as smoothly as possible, every 30 or so days. Here are our work tips for a monthly photo shoot:
Create an operating procedure. Who does what and when helps to clear out any confusion and makes the preparation going smoother.
Plan out the theme and feel for the month. (Eg: November’s theme is gratitude and the feel is a very Joanna Gaines Magnolia Table meets Camille Styles meets Anthropologie.
Decide which products you will shoot and if you need multiple prepared to show some in the bag, some out of the bag, cut in half, etc.
Make a photo shoot list. And have someone else double check it.
Gather your props (Look around your house or borrow before you buy. We love to add texture).
Gather your helpful tools (Blue tape, risers to elevate boxes, scissors, etc).
Plug in the camera the day before. (Believe it or not, we’ve forgotten to charge the camera if it wasn’t on our operating procedure checklist).
Pick up fresh flowers. Greens and florals always add life to a shoot.
Make space and set up a chair and extra tables to organize the madness!
Set up your background. We personally love plain, clean, and white and use those keyboard spray cans to clean off the dust. (Truth: We never mastered how to keep it up so in this behind the scenes photo below, it is actually taped to the top of my crutches).
Make sure the temperature of the photo area is right for your products.
Work with the best lighting/time of day. (We love natural light, windows up, and lights above turned off.)
Turn on music to set the mood for the shoot.
Do couple test shots, then stick to the list and check it off as you go! (We’ve missed shots when we did it on the fly).
Point and shoot! (To see what camera we are using as we learn photography, check out our previous blog here).
Clean up!
Crop photos, edit, save, upload, share!
Hope this helps! Happy photo shoots!
erin’s tip
Don’t stress about perfect photos and have fun making sure you capture the details of the quality products, beauty in the packaging, and the lifestyle feels you want for your customers to envision the experience they can have!
