Sports Product Photography
If there is one thing that I have come to learn whilst taking my photography full time, and that is always practise and broaden your portfolio. I recently bought a fresh pair of Vans shoes (not intentionally) and whilst the weather was nice, I thought to myself that “I really need to do some sports product photography to make myself more attractive to potential clients".
I had watched a few videos on skateboarding photography, whilst also seeing some photographs on Instagram, which inspired to me take my new shoes to a skatepark. However, there was two small issues: (1) I do not skate (2) I do not know any skateboarders! On I popped to Instagram and wrote to a bunch of skateboarders with one question: “What size shoe do you wear and would you mind being photographed?”. I got quite a few responses, but funnily enough it was a colleague at my part time work that knew a really good local skater in Ben Roberts that would fit my shoes. Later that day my cameras were packed and off I went to meet Ben at Glastonbury Skatepark.
Before Ben put my fresh shoes on and ruin them whilst thrashing them about on his board, my main aim was to showcase the shoes and then get some action photos afterwards. The plan was to get the following type of product photographs:
(1) Flat-lay image of the shoes - top down image of the shoes,
(2) Macro photograph - a close up of the shoes,
(3) Backdrop Product photograph - similar to action candid but with a backdrop of some sort,
(4) Environmental photograph - the shoes in or around the skatepark,
(5) Action Candid photograph - the shoes in action, or two, or three!
The above 5 types of photographs is quite a handy template for anyone to use for any type of product photography. They aren’t just photos of the product, they help tell a story, how they’d be used, and gives a potential customer an experience.
Below I have put a selection of photographs from the shoot with Ben and of the Van’s shoes, which were “OFF THE WALL”.
I now want to buy a fish eye lens for ultimate skateboarding photos!