Taking photographs of clothing for your website offers its own unique challenges but fortunately, doesn’t present quite as many challenges as jewellery photography. Whether you’re a product photographer or simply running your own e-commerce site, there are some important steps to take to ensure you capture the best photos.

Plan how to display them

An important consideration is how you want your clothes to be displayed on your website and whether you have the budget to achieve this. There are three main options available to you here: Mannequins, Models and the flat lay technique. A mannequin will allow you to give shape to your products and simulate the human body, without the cost and human resource implications of hiring a model. A model will allow you to achieve a greater range of positions and allow the buyer to really picture what it will look like on a person. As a result, this is the preferred choice wherever possible. Finally, the flat lay technique is the cheapest option and suitable for certain types of clothing but lacks the impact of the other methods.

Prepare all of the equipment you’ll need

It is vital you get the most suitable equipment together and whilst this may well require spending money, you will see a return on your investment with quality photographs bringing in more traffic and increasing customer conversions. A professional clothing photography service will include all of this equipment but should you wish to go it alone, then you should consider researching and obtaining the following:

• Camera
• Tripod
• Lighting set up
• Mannequins or models
• Backdrops
• Sewing kits and accessories (clothes pegs, batteries – basically anything you can think of that may be useful or could run out during the shoot)

Prepare the clothes

You can have all of the equipment in the world but clothing photography can only be effective if you prepare the clothes for the photoshoot. It will mean the images captured will show off the clothes in their best light and require far less editing prior to uploading them to your e-commerce store. Make sure to iron or steam the clothes and hang them up, checking carefully that you have removed all wrinkles and marks. This is where that box of tricks, such as a lint roller and pegs will come in handy!

The photoshoot

You should have everything set up and ready to go and now comes the fun part – taking the photos of your beautiful garments. Remember to capture images from a stable position, making sure you capture the clothing in the best light and equally show off all important details. Don’t forget things like zips, stitching, tags etc. It is far better to take too many photographs and archive them in post-editing than forget a detail here.

Post-production

There is an array of software to choose from to help you edit and perfect the photographs of your clothing before it gets uploaded to your website. If you’ve set up your photoshoot correctly, there will be less to do at this stage, but take the time to really enhance your clothes and show off the detail in them. Remember that a customer is unable to physically see or feel them and so if your photos tell a story and let them imagine how it would fit them, you will win customers.