Photography is the backbone of the marketing industry all across the globe. The marketing industry cannot survive without photography, neither a sole proprietorship nor an organization can survive without marketing; photography is an important part of the business. Photography plays an integral role in grabbing consumers’ attention towards products and increasing sales.

What is Business Photography?

Business photography is everywhere. Waiting on a signal and a billboard in front of you with a product picture or a model promoting a product? That’s business photography. Shopping online and saw different product pictures on a website?

An image printed on the wrapper of food you purchased?  Went to a restaurant to eat and see pictures with food displayed around? Opened a brand’s social media page and saw different pictures of inside events of the brand, i.e., training and different events?

All of these images fall under the category of business photography. However, this one is so vast that it integrates multiple other niches of photography itself.

Commercial and Business Photography the same thing?

General understanding about commercial photography is that it is the niche of photography that involves taking images of individuals and objects to sell a product or service. So, yes. Whenever you hear the term commercial photography, the subject is business photography.

This type of photography is one of the most popular and rewarding ones. In fact, most of the people pursuing photography as a career are commercial photographers. He/she might be shooting models, covering events, taking food images for a business, or shooting something that might appear on a business website.

Besides being professional, it is also a pretty nifty source of good passive income if you continue as a freelancer or hobbyist.

This article will cover two aspects of business photography: the most popular types, tips, and techniques to step up your commercial photography game.

Common types of business photography:

As prior mentioned, business photography is extensive and covers too many niches of business photography. Some most popular types are;

Advertisement

Just like business photography, advertisement is a vast niche itself.

Any footage related to a brand advertisement, either on print media, billboards, on a website, on TV, or ad on social media, if that has an image/video shot by a photographer, that’s the business photography.

Advertisement is among the biggest industries in the world. According to Statista, the financial volume of this industry will surpass 630 Billion USD by 2024. Imagery and photography are involved at every step and every form of advertisement. A whole advertisement campaign can be built on a single photograph.

Many other types of business photography, i.e., food photography, product photography, et cetera, fall under advertisement.

Product photography

Product photography is capturing your product in an eye-catching manner to attract people to the product. Among hundreds, the prime purpose of product photography is enticing consumers in purchasing the product. Of course, it involves the outdoors, but most of the shooting takes place inside the studio.

Visuals play a huge role in marketing campaigns or attracting customers towards the brand, at the very least—for example, product photography to increase brand awareness by highlighting the product’s features. Every seller, even multinational companies, needs it to promote their products.

As a product photographer, your job is to capture images in a photogenic way that highlights the aspects of the product which normally people might miss. This job is not very difficult if you’re passionate but believe me when I tell you. Returns are pretty great!

Fashion photography

Fashion photography is shooting paid models mostly for marketing campaigns. Mostly fashion photography is to display a fashion product or arrest the attention of people.

Mostly the perception about fashion photography is that it is devoted to shooting fashion items only. This type undoubtedly directly intersects with the fashion world. Still, it can be a model showing clothes, shoes, or related items, posing for a billboard, displaying an ad for a website, or promoting a product. Your job is to capture the relationship between a fashion model and the product/service.

The mainstream types of this nice are:

• Catalog Photography.
• High Fashion.
• Street Fashion.
• Editorial Fashion.

Food photography

Do you relate food photography to taking pictures for your Instagram feed? It is a lot more than that; it is one of the commercial niches of photography.

It is a powerful tool mainly used by restaurants and similar outlets to grab people’s attention. Besides capturing mouth-watering food, food photographers are supposed to make food look best for the camera. It also involves post-production work to refine the food image to make it more appetizing yet natural-looking and knowing how to use different equipment and angles.

Architectural photography

This genre of business photography emphasizes capturing architecture and buildings in an aesthetically pleasing manner.

Just like other types, the purpose of this sub-genre of business photography is to attract customers. For example, shooting the store to appeal to customers or provide them information about the business.

Tips for better Business Photography:

Business or commercial photography is so diverse that it is challenging to highlight specific techniques and tips applicable to all niches. These tips are not straightforward, i.e., use high ISO settings or keep a tripod with you all the time, but these sure can help you become a better business photographer no matter what your niche of preference is.

Give importance to your portfolio

Both as a freelancer and professional, building a good portfolio should be important for you. The portfolio will demonstrate your potential to your potential clients.

Building a portfolio might seem an additional task in the hustle and bustle of the world of business photography, but it will save you a lot of time in the long run. It will speak to clients approaching you, show them your vision of seeing the world, and tell them what you can do. It will also help you learn the pros and cons of your own work as you move ahead in your career.

Do not rush in building a portfolio. Develop it over time. Also, if you are looking forward to getting a specific job, develop a customized portfolio from your work, strictly relevant to job specifications.

Invest in a studio

For business photography, clients prefer photographers with their own studios. The reason behind avoiding people without a studio is that the client has to pay an additional cost in renting a studio to get the job done.

If you are passionate enough, invest in building your own studio. <- Affiliate link  🙂 It is costly, but you don’t necessarily need a huge setup. You can start with the spare room at your place. The amount you will spend on it will come back multiple folds.

Assisting professionals

Do not rush into things and try to start your freelancer/professional career overnight. Instead, assist the professionals. Things you can learn from observing the work of professionals and being with them in the field can never learn on your own.

You can get in touch with professionals to provide them your assistance via socializing in person or online in the business photography community, via a reference, or sharing your portfolio with them.

Post-production work and tools

Every photographer wants to capture a perfect image all the time, but that’s not always the case. So instead of going too hard, try to enhance and overcome shortcomings in post-production work. The knowledge of editing is as important as knowledge of tools, camera settings, and shooting techniques.

Editing software can cost you a few dollars, but it will generally benefit all sorts of photography and other editing work.

Some of the frequently used and reasonably available editing software are Photoshop Elements, Photoshop CS, Gimp, Lightroom, Corel Draw, and Skylum Luminar.

Keep updated

Keep in touch with both popular trends and equipment advancements in your niche.

Staying in touch with trends will help you develop many creative ideas for your shooting projects and utilize tools in a better way. With the growth of social media, staying updated with photography and sessional trends is easier than ever.

Keeping update with equipment is also necessary. It will help you come across several new technologies or tools to make a real difference in your work. Again, it can be some minor thing but can significantly better your work.

Conclusion

Without any doubt, business photography is one of the most rewarding types of photography. Besides that, this field is so huge that your area of interest might already be falling under a business or commonly known as commercial photography.

If you are looking forward to starting in this field as a hobbyist or freelancer, get started with small jobs, assist professionals, build your portfolio over time, gradually collect equipment, and invest in the studio. Business photography will start paying you back in no time.