Tag Archives: photography

Product Photography: A Brief Guide

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“Wow, I have a wonderful product that’s going to change the world, win all the awards, and make a ton of money, but goshdarnit, I don’t know the first thing about product photography.” 

Sound familiar? Don’t worry. You aren’t the only person asking this weird and wildly specific question. Mad Genius is here to help.

More Than a Pretty Picture

Decoding Product Photography: Not Your Average Selfie

iPhones are great at doing a lot, but, no matter what Apple would like you to believe, you’re going to need more than the camera/personal computer/tracking device in your pocket to produce great product photography. Unlike every day photography, nothing is candid with product photography. Yes, even when a photo looks as candid as a shot of Ben Affleck having a stress smoke outside in a Dunkin’ Donuts t-shirt. Everything about, in and around product photography, is carefully crafted. 

Why Good Product Photos Are Like Gold for Your Business

The decision consumers make to proceed with a purchase is often made before they know it. Good product photography often acts as the initial attraction that draws customers in. It’s about putting your product in the best light possible. Literally. Attract more customers and increase sales—it’s science.

A Fork in the Road: Professional or DIY

When You Need More Than Just a Good Eye, It’s Time to Hire a Pro

Did you know that 90 percent of online buyers say that photo quality is the most important factor in an online sale? Having a photo isn’t enough—you have to have a great photo.

If your product requires complex lighting, intricate staging, or guaranteed results, it’s time to bring in the professionals. Mad Genius’s photographers bring a blend of technical expertise, creative vision, and experience that can take your product images from “meh” to mesmerizing. They know all the tricks of the trade. When your product looks this good, it doesn’t just catch the eye—it captivates the heart.

Saving Pennies or Splurging on Pros

This comes down to your priorities and resources. If you’re just starting out or have a very tight budget, you might want/need to start with DIY methods. But as your business grows, the investment in seasoned professional photography typically pays for itself. When going to that “next level,” professional photos can elevate your brand. Professional product photography creates a more polished image, and often increases conversion rates. It isn’t just about spending your money to spend it, it’s about investing in your product’s potential.

You shouldn’t trust just anyone to make your product pop. Mad Genius knows the ins and outs of what makes great photography and has experts on hand to help you take the next steps. If you’re ready to speak to one of our geniuses about photography, click the calendar below to schedule a time that works for you.

Do I Need Custom Photography?

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Custom photography isn’t quick, easy, or cheap. However, it can take your project to new heights. 78 percent of online shoppers want photographs to bring products to life. It’s going to be difficult to do that with stock.

Before trying to convince you that you should pay for custom photography, we’ll look at the other side of the coin—a few reasons why it might not be right for your project. 

When Custom Photography Might Not Be for You

Lower Budget Production

Custom photography may simply be a luxury you can’t afford. And that’s okay. A limited budget may mean that a better allocation of resources is put toward other production needs like web design, marketing collateral, or copywriting. 

The Project Has a Short Self Life

If your project is looking to take advantage of a current trend and that may be quickly outdated, an investment in custom photography might not be wise. It can be a time-consuming process, and if you’re on a short turn around, it can be more trouble than it’s worth.

You Don’t Have Specific Needs

Sometimes the visual requirements of a project can be basic. We’re not saying your project is basic. We’d never say that. But the images you have in mind could be generic in nature, which means your needs can be met with high-quality stock images. Since stock photography has a wide range of options, it can suit various themes and styles. 

When Custom Photography Is Right for You

You’re here to be sold on Mad Genius’ razzle-dazzle, so here we go. Let’s look at a few of the factors that go into answering yes to the question, “Should I shoot custom photography or not?”

Do You Need To Get Specific?

The most apropos time to shoot custom photography will always be when you need to get really specific. You must show a certain building or certain images based off specific scenes in an original script (brilliantly written by one Mad Genius super talented writers). These are times when it isn’t just the best option—it’s the only option. Images, like the ones from Mad Genius’s “So Much More” campaign for Southern Farm Bureau Life Insurance, could never be replicated from stock images.

Showcase Your People in the Field

This is a must when you want to show off your people. Check out some of the great work we did for Alliant Construction below. Sure, we could have dug through stock images and found some random actors in hardhats, but the level of authenticity from real workers on the job can’t be beat. A steelworker looks and moves like a steelworker. Unless you’re getting stock images of Shang-Chi doing business, you can end up with images that look wooden.

Custom Photography Lets Your Unique Business Shine

Your project will never suffer as a result of getting the perfect photos that are just right for you. Nobody else will have these photos. You’ll be the only one who has these beautiful images that highlight your brand in exactly the right way. If you want the ultimate creative control and liberty over your project, custom photography is the only one way to go. 

Are you looking to shoot some custom photography, or maybe you just have some question for one of our geniuses? Use the calendar below to schedule some time to chat.

Should I Hire a Food Stylist?

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Expenses can add up quickly when hiring an agency to do professional photography. Chances are, you’d like to save money where you can. So, should you hire a food stylist? Maybe.

Many agencies have the food stylist cost automatically baked into production cost. (Oh, there will be more food puns.) Mad Genius does not. There are a couple of questions Mad Genius likes to ask when considering a food stylist, and if the answer to these questions is yes, then we’ll hire one. Let’s get cooking. (You’re going to either love these or hate them. I’m not sorry.)

Is the Presentation of the Food Critical to the Product’s Success?

This mostly depends on the type of product or service your business is looking to highlight. Let’s just say you’re the marketing director for a college. You’re shooting a commercial trying to increase enrollment for the spring semester, and it features a scene with a few students having a bite to eat in the quad. There’s food in the scene, sure, but hiring a food stylist is probably unnecessary.

In that example, the food isn’t the focus. But if you’re the owner of a restaurant, and you’re hoping to highlight those juicy, delicious burgers, you’ve got a stylist to consider. After all, according to Grubhub data, restaurants that include photos and descriptions of their menu items receive as many as 70 percent more orders than those that don’t. When food is your business, you’re going to want a food stylist on set. 

Could the Food Be Considered Less Appealing if Left Unstyled?

Think about a time you enjoyed fast food, and once you get past the guilt, consider the food. How often has it ever looked like the photo? Not typically, if ever, and let’s be real; if the advertised burger looked the way it does when you get it versus how it looks in the photo at the drive-through, you wouldn’t fork over your hard-earned cash. (I’m on a roll. Boom. Twofer.) 

Grease makes bread soggy. Ice cream melts. Lettuce wilts. The food stylist is there to do a little movie magic, to keep the food looking mouthwatering. If the food you’re shooting won’t keep for very long, get yourself a professional to feign freshness. (Just don’t eat the food when they’re done… You wouldn’t believe some of the not-delicious things they put on food to make it look tasty.)

After You Hire a Food Stylist

You’ve answered yes to the previous questions, and you’ve decided to hire a food stylist. Now let’s take a look at what spending some extra lettuce has gotten you. (I regret nothing.)

Mo Money, Means No Problems and Mo Value

A great food stylist has all the tools of their trade on hand: silverware, plates, bowls, tablecloths, prop items, and other accouterments. This adds production value to your shoot since you won’t have to source said items outright. 

An Expert Eye 

Food stylists have all kinds of tips and tricks they’ve picked up through the years. They’re problem solvers. They know how to make coffee look hot and not cold brown water in a cup. Need to fluff a bun and all the different ways to show off the layers of a sandwich? They’ve got you covered. Food stylists generally know how to make food look far more appetizing than it would otherwise be.

Lighten the Load

When you have a food stylist on set, you’ve created a space for your photographer to worry only about taking great photos. The photographer already has a lot to chew on. (Yes, they’re back.) Shot composition, scheduling, and lighting are just a few of the things a photographer would much rather focus on during the shoot. The food stylist is there to take stuff off the photographer’s plate. (You’re welcome.)

With any product, food or otherwise, putting it in the best light possible is always going to lead to greater results. A little extra money spent now can go a long way in solving some big problems down the road. Mad Genius’s approach to food photography is all about making it look so good, your customer wants to take a bite out of the screen, or the billboard, or whatever other medium it is showcased in. 

If you’re ready to speak to one of our geniuses about photography, or your needs for a food stylist, just click on the calendar below to schedule a time that works for you.

Behind the Scenes: Shooting in RAW

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By Jonathon Dolansky, video tech

Let’s start with steaks.

Have you gone to dinner with someone who ordered their steak rare? They may be onto something… Whether you enjoy a rarer steak or not, most cooks will tell you that ordering a rare steak means you get a juicier, more tender, and more flavorful piece of meat. 

Imagery isn’t much different. Images can be captured on camera in a file format known as RAW. And, just as a rare steak is juicier and more tender, a RAW file holds more information. This allows you to draw out all the flavors from the captured image. 

A Quick History of Image Processing

Negative Developments

Before digital cameras became the standard, images were captured on strips of film. 

This film was coated on one side with a gelatin emulsion that contained microscopic crystals of silver halide. The silver halide crystals are extremely sensitive to light, and were kept in complete darkness until the camera shutter opened and exposed the film for a brief moment. This exposure began a chemical change, albeit a slight one. The change was so small that it wasn’t immediately apparent. 

Exposed film was then processed in a darkroom with a series of chemical baths to create a negative of the image. (A “negative” is a form of the image whose colors are inverted to their complements, not the attitude of the waitress who isn’t satisfied with a 20 percent tip on the steak you ordered.)

The negative image was further processed to re-invert the colors back to normal before being enlarged and printed if it’s a photo, or cut together for video. 

The Birth of Digital Photography

Fast-forward to 1992 when the Joint Photographic Experts Group created the standard of lossy compression for digital images: the JPEG. Today, the JPEG is the most commonly used image compression standard for digital images—meaning quality images at a smaller file size. Many cameras today will default to shooting in JPEG, which processes and compresses the image automatically from within the camera. 

JPEGs are perfect for the average user because the majority of photos are going straight from the camera to the internet, but the problem with compressing your images is that you trade some quality for the smaller file size. JPEGs can have their degree of compression adjusted, with more compression equaling more loss in quality, just like a steak that’s cooked longer will lose some of its flavor. 

Check out the image below. Yes, it’s an extreme example designed to show a gradient of compression, but it illustrates the point. Most JPEGs, however, have little perceptible loss in image quality. 

Why RAW Imagery Is Best for Editors

If most JPEGs have little loss in quality, why bother with the massive file sizes of a RAW image? Good enough is good enough, right?

No, not always.

A compressed file makes images more difficult to edit. Reconsider the picture of the cat. If I wanted to edit the shadows on the right side of the cat’s face, not only is it difficult to differentiate the different parts of the cat’s fur, but any changes made will look less natural.

Untouched and Unlimited

A RAW image is so called because it is unprocessed. It’s similar to a filmstrip that’s been exposed, but undeveloped. A RAW file is also uncompressed, leading to the massive file size. This lack of compression may lead to some redundant information, but it also leads to more room to work within the editing phase for a cleaner, more natural edit. An editor has much greater control and flexibility over which parts of a RAW file he can safely alter without the image looking unrealistic. 

Furthermore, an editor can make changes multiple times in a nondestructive manner since edits aren’t made to the RAW image itself and without losing image quality. Admittedly, to achieve this one needs professional editing software that won’t overwrite the information on the original image. Of course, you’ll need that software regardless, since RAW files aren’t standardized and many computers aren’t natively capable of reading the file on their own. 

Once the edits are made, the image is converted and compressed into a format, such as JPEG, that’s readable by the average computer. Below, you can see the differences between a JPEG and a RAW file. Notice how the RAW file has far more information in both the detail and the color of the grass and clouds than the JPEG.

You Need Talent With the Tools

Just because you can capture a RAW photo or video, doesn’t make it a good photo or video. Several bits of knowhow are necessary to achieve quality: lighting a scene, directing the actors, crafting the props, designing the art cards, coding the website, and much, much more. 

Lucky for you, Mad Genius has oodles of both talent and tools. Get in touch, and let’s talk about how we can use them all for you.

If you only leave this blog with one takeaway, let it be this: Medium-rare steaks are the superior steaks. It’s science.