Product Photography for Not On The High Street

A recent commission has been to shoot product photography for Not On The High Street (notonthehighstreet). Could it have been any more appropriate, as we head back in to British Summer Time?

Luxury picnic hampers

Just down the road from us is Glyndebourne, which is synonymous with putting on world class productions of opera. It's also famous for its immaculately dressed opera-goers and their indulgent 'long interval' picnics in the gardens, there. The connection here is obviously luxury picnic hampers.

These particularly lovely hampers are being sold online through Not On The High Street (NOTHS). It's therefore key that the products meet the NOTHS photography guidelines.

Working with NOTHS guidelines for photography

The retail website sells a wide range of lifestyle products. These include clothes, jewellery, stationery, furnishings and gifts for any occasion. Unsurprisingly, the photography on the site is a mix of professionally taken still life shots, pack shots and cutouts. These must all adhere to the NOTHS guidelines for photography.

Product photography for Not on the High Street image

Furthermore, photographs should share a consistency across all the suppliers and their products. This provides visitors to the site with a sense of familiarity. The general look and feel should be natural, light, clean and aspirational. This is partly achievable by using natural looking lighting and soft shadows, subtle colours and avoiding very dark backgrounds.

This all helps enable shoppers to visualise products in their lives and in their homes.

Images always appear square on the website, therefore the framing of shots needs to take the subsequent cropping in to account. In general, the approach is therefore, keep it simple using a single light source, with just the odd prop here and there. Photographing with direct sunlight should be avoided as it produces very hard shadows.

Images that adhere to NOTHS style guidelines are more likely to be selected for use alongside other similarly photographed products in Not On The High Street promotions and marketing campaigns.

Click here for Not on the High Street's guidelines

Product photography for Not on the High Street Glyndebourne picnic hamper image

Result!

A successful shoot all round. Not On The High Street is happy with the shots. More importantly, my client is very happy. Almost straightaway, having posted the new images of the hampers on NOTHS, my client emailed me saying;

"We've already had lots of orders, so people obviously like them. This has kept me busy...Thanks so much, we are really pleased with everything."

Previous shoots

In recent years these include giant outdoor games, croquet sets, hanging glass birds, scented candles, incense sticks, jewellery and felt animal sewing kits for children.