How product photography builds trust and desire

A product photo has one job. It needs to make someone trust what they see, or want the product enough to look twice. Everything in the frame, the props, the composition, the background, works towards that one thing. We shoot product and advertising photography for Belgian and international brands, and the brief is nearly always some version of the same question: how do you make someone believe in a product before they have held it. That question is the same whether the product is a chocolate, a spare part or a roll of tape, only the answer changes.

Trust starts with what the photo shows

For Van Vuuren, a specialist in turned and milled parts, we photographed a technician measuring a finished part with a height gauge. It is a quiet image, but it says exactly what the company wants to say: every part gets checked before it leaves the workshop.

Trust also comes from showing how a product is built. For Tupperware's multifunction mandolin we shot an exploded view, with the blades and the individual parts pulled apart in the frame. It shows a buyer exactly what they are getting, including how the parts come apart for cleaning. That kind of clarity in product photography does more for confidence than a polished hero shot on its own.

Styling can tell the product's story

Styling is how the story gets into the frame. For Chocolaterie Elise's mendiants, chocolate topped with nuts and dried fruit, we set loose nuts, dried fruit and a copper pot around the finished pieces on a wooden board. Those are the same props and ingredients the brand uses to make them, which keeps the image close to a kitchen rather than a studio, and that suits food and drinks photography for a brand built on handmade quality.

A photo can make someone want the product

Some products need to make the viewer hungry rather than confident. For Neuhaus we photographed their pâtes de fruits sliced and stacked against white, letting the colour and the sugar coating carry the image. For De Frietist we built a photo of a burger with every layer, bun, patty, cheese, tomato and sauce, flying apart. Neither image claims anything about taste. They simply put the product in front of someone at its most appealing moment, close enough to see the detail and bright enough to hold the eye.

The setting can carry a brand's values

Where you place a product matters as much as how you light it. CRC makes lubricants for the automotive trade, so we shot their brake cleaner in a real workshop, with a mechanic working under a car on a lift. Anyone who works on cars recognises that setting straight away, and that does more to connect the brand to its market than a plain studio background would.

Consistency matters across every channel

A single strong image only goes so far. For Gyproc we shot a whole series of catalogue packshots, from small items to large, spread over several shoots. Keeping the same light, the same angle and the same background across that range means the packshots read as one family, whether someone meets them on the packaging, in a catalogue or on the website. That consistency is what makes a brand recognisable, label or no label.