As a commercial photographer, you will specialise in photography taken for commercial purposes. This could be to promote a product, brand or even an individual or to sell a product or service.
The images you take could be used in advertising campaigns like newspapers, magazines and brochures to promote your clients. Many commercial photographers choose to specialise in one particular area of the commercial industry, for example, the food and drink sector.
Generally, there are eight main types of commercial photography.
Advertising Photography
Advertising photography is one of the most popular commercial photography sectors and is primarily sales-driven, normally conducted through an advertising agency or design firm.
Typically, advertising photography is used to highlight a product, service, brand or an individual through print advertising. This could be magazines, newspapers and leaflets as well as websites, television ads, digital ads and on billboards.
Aerial Photography
Aerial photography is taken from an elevated position using high-end cameras from either helicopters, aircraft systems, parachutes or balloons.
Concepts often include frame numbers, focal length, flight lines, index maps and stereoscopic coverage.
Architecture & Interior Photography
Architecture and interior photography is the art of capturing images of structures, buildings and the interiors of houses, restaurants and any other private or commercial space.
This type of commercial photography is often used to promote architects, interior designers, restaurants and even estate agents in order to attract potential customers and buyers.
Automobile Photography
Automobile photography is used by car companies and dealerships to promote brand new or existing vehicles, vehicle features and benefits to potential clients. This has become an increasingly popular specialty as the craze for cars, especially in the classic sector, has grown.
Food & Drink Photography
The food and drink industry has always been popular amongst commercial photographers. Food photographers capture everything from various cuisines and menus to food pack shots.
Typically, food and drink photographers work in partnership with restaurants, supermarkets as well as food and drink manufacturing brands.
Product Photography
Product photography is critical to promoting a product's various features, benefits and showcasing style. It is a really important aspect of any product-based business and in recent decades has been taken to a higher level than ever before.
Food & Drink Photography
The food and drink industry has always been popular amongst commercial photographers. Food photographers capture everything from various cuisines and menus to food pack shots.
Typically, food and drink photographers work in partnership with restaurants, supermarkets as well as food and drink manufacturing brands.
Journalism Photography
Journalism photography is the art of taking photographs which are considered noteworthy and generally, accompanies news topics and stories.
Photographs for the news are not always easy to shoot and at times can run into life-threatening risks. These photographs generally capture major events and current happenings in the world and are used by media houses, news channels and online news portals.
Corporate Portraiture
Corporate portraiture is an entire genre within itself but it can also be classed as a category of commercial photography.
Most commercial photographers design their website with three main aspects in mind.
Firstly, it's important that your website has easy navigation. One way to make your website easy to navigate is by considering the "journey" you want your customer to take through your site. For example, you might want to have your customer start on your home page, before looking through your portfolios and finally ending on your contact page.
Equally, the easier your website is to navigate, the more enjoyable your clients will find the experience.
Secondly, as a commercial photographer you will not only want to sell prints and other photographic products to clients, but also focus on downloads. Many clients will want to purchase downloads over printed products as they can then use the images on their websites and in other printed materials.
As downloads have become so popular in recent years, it's important to have large images to download fast in your client galleries.
Finally, the main outcome you want from your website is to encourage your visitors to contact you so that they can book your services or purchase images. Therefore, you will want to make your contact information clear and easy to find.
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Social Media
If you use social media, and we highly recommend that you do, you will want to make your profiles easy to find. By linking your social media platforms to your website is a really great way to do this. Not only does it make it easier for your visitors to find and follow your social profiles but is also great for your search engine optimisation. You can link to your social media platforms from anywhere on your website, but the most common is from your website footer, website header and contact page.
Pop-Up Boxes
Pop-up boxes are a great way of isolating a visitor's attention and initiating a particular response from them. Generally, a pop-up box is used to display an important message. For example, to encourage visitors to book a session, spend over a certain amount at the checkout, follow your business on social media or to sign up to your mailing list.
Pop-up boxes appear on your website periodically, according to your chosen schedule. For example, you could select to display your pop-up box on every page of your website, or just one, such as your home page. You could also choose to display different pop-ups on different pages of your site. For example, you could encourage visitors to sign up to your mailing list on the home page but have a different pop-up box advertising a special session display on your services page or contact page.
Notification Bars
Notification bars are mainly used as either an announcement bar or a cookie bar.
An announcement bar is typically used to display current, important information to your clients and should be updated fairly regularly. Announcement bars could be used to display information such as special offers and discounts, seasonal announcements, holiday breaks and other important announcements, for example, Covid-19 pandemic updates.
Alternatively, a cookie bar is used to link to your cookie and privacy policy so that visitors can read, should they want to, how you handle their information and data. A cookie policy is required on any website using persistent cookies i.e. if you are offering gift vouchers to customers.
If in doubt, we would recommend that you always display a cookie policy, just to be on the safe side!
Cover Photos
Introduce your client to their private gallery using beautiful cover photos. A collection's cover photo displays one large, full-screen image with the collection title in the centre. The image is selected by you and the settings can be customised to best suit the collection requirements. You can also select a different image and settings for each collection, giving you complete control over the appearance of each client gallery.
Add An Attachment
As a corporate portrait photographer, you may often have clients that send you written briefs or ask you to sign contracts before starting a project. You can make this workflow easier for both you and your client by adding an attachment option to your advanced contact pages.
All attachments that are uploaded and sent via the advanced contact form are automatically saved to your My Images area, making them easy to find at a later date.
Big, Responsive Thumbnails
It's important to consider your client gallery in the same way you would any other page on your website. After all, it's the main way your customer will view and purchase their images.
Using big, responsive thumbnails allows you to display image thumbnails as big as you want within responsive client gallery layouts. Not only that, but you can also select different watermark profiles depending on the media type displayed. This allows you to really customise the appearance of your client galleries as well as give your customer's a unique, well-designed experience.
You can sell anything in an online shop with theimagefile, from physical products (such as traditional prints and other photo products) and stand-alone products to digital downloads, and services.
As a commercial photographer, you will most likely want to focus your efforts on selling downloads as many clients will want to use your images in their own printed materials, on their websites and social media. You may also want to offer a selection of prints and other photographic products such as canvases. However, if you offer commercial photography workshops or training you could consider selling these services within an online shop as well.