In case you missed my first installment, my name is Jessica, I live in Pittsburgh, and I sell wedding invitations and geeky greeting cards with my husband through our Etsy shop, theBird+theBeard. Now that we’ve gotten the introduction out of the way, let me walk you through my first year as an Etsy seller and the evolution of theBird+theBeard.
Maybe someone reading this might be thinking of selling their wares, but is too overwhelmed to know where to begin. Don’t be discouraged. Put yourself out there! TheBird+theBeard started with handful of products I had previously designed for my own personal use. I took a couple rough looking pictures, created a few listings, and started making sales. I hit the ground running and seriously haven’t stopped. I’d like to take the opportunity in this blog post to show you the evolution of my photography.
Some of my earliest photos looked like this:
One of the earliest photos of our Library Book Wedding Invitations. Thankfully, this never made as a shop photo, at least not that I recall.
The flash washed out the beautiful color of the booklet, and made the hardwood floor background look sickly.
After a few months and a modest amount of sales, I retired my old digital camera with flash and hardwood office floor background, and realized I got a much better result using my iPhone (I know, it kinda makes me cringe, too) and the natural light coming into my dining room.
The current photo we use to showcase our Library Book Invitations. (Still lots of room for improvement.)
Great! You can actually tell what color the booklets are, and that’s pretty important since your customers will be shopping based on your (and other shops’) photos.
To prepare for the holiday season, I started experimenting with props:
Ready for the holidays with our Happy Christmas Sentimental Elements greeting card.
Then I moved onto reshooting some non-holiday products:
Library Checkout Card Save the Dates, shown with old books and a date stamper.
Much better, right? The photos start creating an atmosphere, and maybe even elicit a feeling from your potential customer. Again, since your customers will be shopping based on your photos, you want to show them something that will draw them in and make them feel that your product is special.
If you’re reading this and thinking, “But I don’t have time to reshoot every picture!” let me tell you that the current tally of photos in my shop is around 360. I’ve got a lot of reshooting ahead of me and sometimes it’s all I can do to tread water and keep up with production and emails. Maybe try to reshoot a couple products each week, or every other week. Break it in to small tasks that you can manage.
To conclude this installment of my adventures in product photography, I should also note that once I get a great photo that showcases our merchandise, I save multiple versions in various sizes and resolutions. This helps me have files on hand that are ready for print or the web, and saves me from scrambling to scrounge up suitable photos for submission deadlines to blogs and magazines. In the year ahead, I plan to continue to improve my product photos and maybe even splurge on a professional shoot.
Jessica Schaefer is a graduate of Edinboro University with a degree in graphic design. She rekindled her love for design by creating, printing, and binding her wedding save-the-dates, invitations, and programs. She is a member of Pittsburgh Center for the Arts where she continues to study paper making and printmaking. Jessica started her Etsy business with designs from her own wedding before expanding to new ideas. This year her business, theBird+theBeard, also began selling cards in independent shops in several states. When not working on new ideas for theBird+theBeard, she enjoys camping and spending time with her husband and stepson. You can review her work at thebirdandthebeard.com.
