Monday 1 May 2017

I Used IKEA as a Free Set for Shooting Product Photos

I recently did a product photo shoot for a kids product I invented and am launching. Instead of staging and styling the photos myself, I decided to use an IKEA store.

I’m not a professional photographer, I’m an inventor, so someone who knows how to use a camera properly will inevitably be able to get much better results from this little trick than I did… but it served me well!

Recently, I kept on getting request from bloggers for some more photo’s of my product in situ. All the original photography had been done in a studio and dressed with items from high street stores, but the second time around I had neither the time nor money (nor energy) to do this again!

I realised that IKEA was nearby with a multitude of home and office environments that teams of people had spent getting just right. So disguising my product in the nearest designer FRAKTA bag, I headed for the nursery section and set up some shots.

It was surprisingly easy to get away with. Here are the photos I ended up with:

And here are some tips if you’d like to try this yourself:

1) Go an hour before closing – by this point the staff will want to go home and won’t care.

2) Take a cover story just in case they do.

3) Move tags out of shot — it’s easier than Photoshopping (which I later found out)

4) Don’t be afraid to move things, especially lighting.

5) Confidence is everything

6) For extra credit, swap you blue FRAKTA for a hello on the way in.

My concerns about hostile staff didn’t turn out to be an issue, although I did do our best to be subtle and make sure I put everything back in place to not cause any burden or problems for IKEA.


About the author: Jeremy Bond is an inventor based in London, UK, and the creator of MURO. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author.


Image credits: IKEA store photo by Magnus D



from PetaPixel https://petapixel.com/2017/05/01/used-ikea-free-set-shooting-product-photos/

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