Charleston, South Carolina and Miami, Florida Jewelry Photographer | Kate Benson

by | May 14, 2018 | Carolina photographer, Charleston Product Pho..., Charleston Still Life ..., Jewelry

In all businesses you reach a point in growth where you can’t do it all by yourself anymore. It’s a great thing to have happen but at the same time, it’s hard to give up control. It’s how we photographers go from being a one man (or woman) show to becoming a brand. It doesn’t usually happen overnight but over years with hard work and maturity. My business has been hitting these growth points for the last few years and I’ve solved them by everything from hiring full time team to outsourcing smaller tasks. In fact, I have a meeting tomorrow to hand over another part of the business into more qualified hands (seriously, I don’t have the time or interest for Instagram… I know it’s important but it’s just way to narcissistic for me). Last summer, it was time for me to bring in new eyes and get a photo editor to help me with my website. What occurred was a huge and much needed/overdue change. We went with a design for the website that really challenged the edit workflow and so if you are seeing things moving around a lot lately, it’s because I’m trying to put new work on a couple times a year but the flow of the website makes it hard. So hang tight with me on that. It will get to where it needs to be.

Which brings me to jewelry. One of the hardest items to photograph is jewelry. I’ve talked about it a lot. Often, as you’ve likely seen on my blog and website jewelry is photographed on a clean background. But, every once in a while, I get to play. I’m really interested in cut paper backgrounds. I love that they are whimsicle and playful. So for a fun personal project, feeling like I needed something on my website with jewelry in a different way, my assistant Chelsea and I created a fun forest set with gold necklaces and earrings. I’d love to know what you think of it!

 

South and North Carolina Product Photographer | Kate Benson | Jewelry E-commerce Photographer

by | Feb 28, 2018 | Carolina photographer, Jewelry

It’s been a busy start to 2018 here in Charleston, South Carolina! I’ve been working on various product photography projects, including a large one for Moonglow Jewelry. They are a jewelry company based in Miami, Florida who reached out to me while looking for an e-commerce product photographer. They wanted a new direction for their website product photography.

Moonglow’s website is filled with unique pendant jewelry. They truly take their saying “every moment has a moon” to heart. Their beautiful pieces contain a moon pendant that is customizable. You pick a date, and they tell you what the moon phase was and use that as your pendant. It’s such a great idea to remember those special dates by!

At first, Moonglow contacted me for a test shoot. Their art direction was to make the jewelry products look like Tiffany & Co’s. I was ready for this request because I always treat jewelry with the same care and attention to detail, whether it’s costume jewelry or a 2 million dollar ring. I strive to present products in the most flattering way possible. Moonglow sent me a few pieces, and I played with the lighting until I was satisfied with the image, and they agreed. Afterwards, they sent me the rest of their products.

This shoot was unique because of the number of products and the amount of recoloring needed. Moonglow sent over 150 jewelry pieces to shoot after the test products. Included products were necklaces, bracelets, rings, earrings, and a few other accessories. I often had to do a new setup for each style of jewelry.

Here are some examples of my jewelry product photography for Moonglow.

 

It look a lot of careful movements working with the different setups and getting the lighting right, but I am pleased with the results. After the shoot, they came back and asked if I could create the missing birthstones in some of the pieces they didn’t have all 12 colors in. So we used CGI to create the remaining 11 months of stones.

I look forward to working with Moonglow Jewelry again and wish them the best success with their revamped website!

If you want to see more studio and lifestyle shots, see this Charleston product photographer’s instagram!

Charleston Fashion Photographer | Beija Flor Jeans shoot | Kate Benson Photography

by | Aug 1, 2016 | Charleston advertising..., Charleston commercial ..., Charleston Fashion Pho..., Fashion, Product

If you saw my post with my new business card designs (or my Instagram), you may spot a familiar shot or two here. These were shot for Beija Flor Jeans and the product is truly great. I’m anxiously waiting for it to cool down so I can wear my 3 new pairs (yes, 3!!). These flatter your behind like nothing I’ve seen before, and who doesn’t want that (sure beats that time I bought Burberry Jeans a size too small so my booty would look awesome and broke the zipper)?

I was on set in Miami when they called to discuss a new add campaign. They wanted to do something in the Charleston area but were still playing with ideas. Ironically, when they first suggested jeans on a boat, I was not on board (pun intended). However, the mother/daughter team behind Beija Flor patiently discussed the in’s and out’s of the brand with me so I could help conceptualize the project. There was no formal art director on this shoot so I wanted to make sure that I could deliver the company’s vision and energy. What came across to me clearly was that these jeans were something women had been waiting for. The cuts lifted and accentuated all the right curves and the waistline was high enough to move around in without being restrictive. The product is great and I identified with it quickly!

Part of what the ladies emphasized were their colors. Blues and whites dominated the brand’s palate and soon it became clear that a boat was exactly where to shoot.

Early morning I joined our model Brittany Harvey (with Directions USA), makeup artist Pamela Lesch (with Prime Time Pretty), and the Beija Flor Jeans team, Kathy, Emilie, and Anna at the hotel and then headed over to our fishing yacht.

Throughout the day, the rain held off and gave us some beautiful light. Brittany looked amazing in the jeans and did a fantastic job modeling. She really embraced the energy that fit the brand.

As always, I’m so excited to have new work to share and am really happy to have met and worked with Beija Flor Jeans. I love being a based in Charleston fashion photographer!

Charleston Product Photographer | Amazing Amazon Photography

by | Jul 27, 2016 | ​ Professional Photogr..., Advice, Charleston advertising..., Charleston commercial ..., Charleston e-commerce ..., Charleston Ecom photog..., Charleston Ecommerce p..., ​Charleston Photographer, Charleston Product Pho..., Charleston Still Life ..., Charleston website pho..., Charlotte product phot..., e-commerce photographer, Ecommerce Photographer, Product, Product Photographer C..., Still life photographe..., Still Life Photographer

It may not be common knowledge but I have a second business and website that I’ve been building called Product Photo Lab (PPL for short). The website is still in the works, but there is some basic content up there. Finding openings in my schedule to fix and revise the work in progress that is PPL is really tough. Recently though, despite the website not being as ready as I would like it to be, I’ve been getting contacted and doing some work through it. This isn’t my usual work, as you already may have guessed by the title of this blog post, but I’m really excited that the website is starting to generate some calls, and therefore enthusiastically making time to do the work.

One of the unexpected places that I’ve been contacted to produce images for is Amazon listings. These shoots are usually pretty quick but the clients are looking for something a bit more refined to help their products stand out and hopefully get that coveted number 1 ranking on Amazon.

I’ve learned quite a few of tips on how images sell on Amazon in this process. Products in environments and in use will generally outsell those that are just plain white shots. Additionally, Amazon does require the first shot to be on an all pure white background (which has some specifics to it as well, most of my readers already know what “pure white” is but if you don’t, it’s is a rating of 255 in all color channels). So this has presented interesting challenges (which I love). One client, had a glass water bottle that he sold as a set of 6 and single. Here was what the bottle started with:

Photographing a clear empty bottle isn’t very flattering. So I filled it with water letting the light gradient throughout the inside (trick one).

Then we put very carefully selected liquids into the bottles so the colors wouldn’t get dark and murky (trick two).

Lastly, I asked how he felt about fresh plants in the bottles, which he seemed willing to entertain, and viola!

I was able to product a collection of photographs for him where the shots met Amazon’s specifics but the shots had enough color and vibrancy to pop off the page when compared to other bottles! Happily, he is already on page 1 for his requested search terms and selling like crazy! After discussing what the client needed, I composited 6 of these shots together to create his opening image on Amazon. Here is a look at what he sent me for art direction (also what the competition happens to be showing).

This is what his listing looks like this today:

As I mentioned before, I’ve worked with quite a few Amazon clients lately. Here are a few more shots just to give you an idea what being a product photographer in Charleston is keeping busy with!

This client wanted in environment and shots with a model using the product:

Product Photographer Charlotte and Charleston | From Dallas with Love | Crown & Buckle with Motto

by | Jul 22, 2016 | Advertising, Charleston Fashion Pho..., Charleston Product Pho..., Charleston website pho..., Charlotte product phot..., e-commerce photographer, Ecommerce Photographer, Product

Flash Back Friday today bringing you the final product photography for Crown & Buckle’s new Black Label line. I shot this earlier this year on studio location in Dallas TX. Thomas, proud owner and visionaire behind Crown & Buckle teamed up with superstar branding agency Motto to bring me in on this shoot. Sunny and Ashleigh from Motto had a strong vision for the sleek and sophisticated images that needed to be incorporated into the launching of Black Label. Crown & Buckle makes beautiful watch straps and we wanted to make sure that the photography for this line illustrated the quality of these products.

I’ve had the pleasure of working remotely with Motto before but this was the first time we were able to all get together on set. It’s great that I can work with clients from almost anywhere in the country without having to be there in person, but this shoot Motto wanted to be on set for and they really brought their vision with them. It was a great day!

Since the product C&B sells is straps (not watch faces) we had the intriguing challenge of making sure the straps were the star of the shots. As a product photographer, I always hope to get to do this kind of work because it is equally challenging and rewarding to do.

That day, as well as within a short time after (back in Charleston), I photographed images on brand for their website and social media pages. This is the final product:

 

For more Charleston product photographer work, visit my site katebenson.com!

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