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How to Plan a Photo Shoot for Your Clothing Brand
Planning a photoshoot for a clothing brand is as exciting as creating the apparel collection itself. To make sure the process goes smoothly, especially for first-timers, we have compiled this step-by-step guide.
Liz Kasian
Mar 25, 2020
Months of creating concept, designing, choosing fabrics and manufacturing are done. You have your beautifully crafted, stylish pieces. Just a final step has left – a photoshoot, and your apparel are ready to win your future customers love! A proper photoshoot may multiply on the glory of your new fashion pieces or take away from its grandeur by failing to highlight its strengths and understate its softer spots.
To make sure the process goes smoothly for first-timers and experienced ones alike, we have compiled a step-by-step guide on how to plan a photoshoot for a clothing brand. For extra insider immersion, our client, Ms. Gina Gargiulo from American Exchange Group has kindly shared hacks and tips from their own experience while working with photography production. Please, meet Gina!
We need new photos every time we have new or key styles, and images are used and posted across multiple channels. So, product photography made professional is crucial. And we always love seeing how our products turn out!
– Gina Gargiulo, E-Commerce Coordinator at American Exchange Group
Imagery has gained incredible social and commercial weight in all realms of our lives – and only video can compete in its selling power with photography when it comes to ecommerce. But due to file size restrictions on product pages, we know for sure, that product photography will hardly ever be replaced by video.
This is why planning a photoshoot is one of those skills, that every marketer and fashion industry business owner must have as default settings. Great photography is needed for product pages of an online store, for social media, for blogs, for press releases. Professional product images are proven to increase sales and conversions.
Every industry has its own rules when it comes to product photography. Fashion, namely clothing, shoes, and accessory business, is no different. Let’s quickly enumerate the particulars of the clothing brand photoshoot:
Particulars of the fashion photoshoot:
To properly plan a clothing brand photoshoot marketers must have an exact idea where the resulting images will be used: on product pages, in a fashion blog, in social media or an article.
The purpose of the session also helps to understand which type of shoot best fits the bill. Ask yourself just how much story you want to convey with the images? Below are a few examples of potential scenarios when professional product photography comes handy to a fashion brand:
Whatever is your purpose, understanding it is important to best select the type of clothing product photography most suited for the function. So below we list 3 major types of a photoshoot:
Usually done in a clothing photography studio against a white or light homogeneous background. Products are positioned flat on a table (lay flat mode), shot on a ghost mannequin or shot at an eye-level while hanging or pinned.
Fashion creative directors and marketers usually use this type of product photography to provide content for showcase on a brand’s website, for product pages in an online store or use on social media with some extra text or graphics incorporated into them.
In this type of a photoshoot, the focus of the photographer is still on the product itself, but more context is provided for the featured item: a model, real-life backgrounds, props. This is a fantastic way to outline, pinpoint and bond with the target audience.
The editorial shoot speaks beyond the product but goes up to a more abstract level: the level of the brand essence. The editorial photo session is about storytelling and creating the image, the soul, the karma of the brand. Editorial photo sessions are the priciest ones, require a lot of planning and resources to work as a point of differentiation of a brand among thousands of other similar brands. So they are placed at the very top of the clothing product photography pricing. Editorials are used for a fashion magazine interview or a first-page commercial, a brand launch is also a good time to choose this type of a photoshoot.
On the US market, which is one of the most advanced markets in terms of ecommerce and the biggest amounts spent online, product images start with 25 dollars per image and go all the way up to thousand dollars per image. We have elaborated on a topic of pricing in product photography in detail in our blog, but are happy to recap some major points below in case you have not read the article yet:
Look at the example below: we picked products of different complexity categories, plain T-shirt laying flat is much easier to shoot and retouch than transparent mesh top:
For smaller or younger clothing brands photoshoot will be one of the major costs after the design and production of the merchandise.
While many ecommerce platforms, like Shopify, provide free website builders, it is cheap and easy to make a decent-looking website with payment systems all integrated.
The only thing left to be done to fill in the online shop with brand identity is to produce professional photo content.
Here is a little hint, how we do it at Squareshot:
Established brands in the fashion industry face fierce competition – whatever segment they represent: luxury, mid or mass market. They are competing for different metrics – average check, loyalty, return rate, brand mentions, or quantity of items sold, but the competition is tight across all price segments.
Tips for the established clothing brands on organizing a photoshoot:
While commissioning any kind of visual works: be it web design, video, makeup, tattoo or product photography – it is paramount to show some referential work to your service provider of choice. Finding some images , that you like and you think hit the target with your target audience is vital to pass your vision to the executor of your ideas.
In order for a photo service vendor to pick up on your idea, on the message, you want to bring forward to your audience, it is best you find images that resonate with you and your brand. Make sure to provide a brand book, if this is available. If not – advise the provider of the service a color palette, values, describe your target audience in detail.
Mood board a.k.a. inspiration board is the best way to approach this task. Pinterest is very handy when it comes to creating and sharing mood boards.
It is easier for established clothing brands and tougher for fashion design beginners. Ideally, you will have produced enough items in different colors and sizes to work with any models best fit for the job. Once the collection or a line of products is ready, the next step is to make some decent imagery of those pieces.
In order for a photo studio to process your order in the most orderly manner, it is highly advisable that you prepare a list of all items for the photoshoot. Each product, that you need images of, needs to be enlisted, so that to make all stages smoother: from taking it out of inventory, shipment, shooting, to editing and filing them.
Every product on the shoot list should contain the following info:
This list will also come handy to estimate the price for the works and to do a shop around when looking for a photographer.
Our e-commerce team always prepares line sheets of the products so we have the style information and reference images. We also made our own photography protocol handbook to follow exactly which angles to shoot for which types of product, along with edit feedback so the products are positioned and retouched correctly. Thus, we’re ensured we will like the result.
– Gina Gargiulo, E-Commerce Coordinator at American Exchange Group
If you’ve decided to go with the on-model photoshoot, this part would be one of the most time- and resource-consuming. Depending on your budgets the models for your shoot may be sourced from your close friends and family circle or from the top modeling agency in New York.
Sharing it with the entire team helps to set the expectations and standards of the shoot for all parties involved. Pinterest and Instagram are the best resources to go through while hunting for the most inspiring images for the mood board.
For most of the product photography, a well-equipped studio will do all the job. Well, an important part of it. But an editorial photo session and lifestyle photography may require some more busy background or location. Favorite locations for luxury clothing brands:
Great locations for mass-market clothing brand photography:
While looking for the right location, it is important to make sure you get all the permissions and arrangements with the administration of the property. If shooting in the public space, make sure to take into account privacy – opting for the early morning will reduce the crowd size. Look how our client Ditto Africa combined product photography and editorial photo session on their website:
To find a photographer to do your clothing photography for ecommerce is a multi-faceted mission, that involved many important factors:
Having a schedule, a shoot list, equipment, coffee breaks all organized and ready to go will make this day less stress-full and more enjoyable. Make sure the entire team is on board with the schedule and models know where and when to arrive. Reminders may seem offensive to professionals, but they also signal professionalism on behalf of the organizer of the shoot.
When the day comes, one can only work with what has been arranged beforehand. This is why we have gone to the trouble of compiling this guide on how to plan a photoshoot – so that the process is easier for all the new creative directors, marketing managers, and clothing online store owners.
Sometimes reading a good manual takes a newbie up to speed and helps to foresee all the small nuances, that cannot be fixed on the day of the shoot.
The preparation is probably the most exhausting part of the process. It’s a lot of coordination with different teams to receive the samples on time, then finding inspiration images, and figuring out timelines as to when the products can be posted with these images. Still, if all the preparation was well thought-through, it’s always worth it and works out in the end.
– Gina Gargiulo, E-Commerce Coordinator at American Exchange Group
Depending on the budgets, purpose, complexity, type of photo session, editing may take anything from 10 minutes per image to a few hours per image. Count that time in, when planning a new collection release, so you can take care of other tasks while the retoucher is working on your images.
Sharing the ready-made images is a process that has a best practice page of its own:
The most exciting part of the whole process is definitely receiving the final images. You can’t have sales or an item live online without incredible product images, and that’s exactly what Squareshot delivers. Then the fun continues from there to upload them all to our multiple channels and see how our consumers react to them.
– Gina Gargiulo, E-Commerce Coordinator at American Exchange Group
Preparation is half the battle. It involves lots of people, it involves lots of funds, it involves lots of creativity. No wonder many creatives in the fashion industry may feel frustrated and lost when tasked with this mission. This is why we've set these principles and nuances of the planning process for you.
If you need more insider info or have a specific question – drop us a line: about apparel retouching, bags product photography, best angles for your jewelty – we'll be glad to help you out. And keep an eye on our blog for more useful long reads!
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