Types of Commercial Photography I Specialize In
The commercial photography I’ve done varies as much as the industrial photography I create. Often, when I’m on an industrial project site, I’m also there to create commercial marketing photographs of the client’s product in use within that industrial setting. After all, companies that sell products to industrial companies still have to market those products commercially — at a trade show, on a sales sheet, on the company website, or in an annual report. Manufacturing companies do the same to market their business to new vendors.
One example: a client that manufactures fully automated sawmills — one mill was part of a $130 million build. After a period of operation, they added a robotic system to stack lumber just before it was packaged for the local lumber yard. It was an elaborate setup: scanners tracked each board’s width and length, sorted it further down the conveyor line, and a series of robots lifted and stacked the measured lumber onto pallets. The client needed a packaged video of the conveyor and robotics to help sell the system to other automated sawmills. The entire time on-site, it was what I call “snowing sawdust” — like standing in a light snowstorm. I worked in full PPE the whole time, staying safe while still making the client’s robots look commercially glamorous enough to sell.
1. Executive & Business Headshots
I’ve photographed a hospital’s roster of doctors who stopped in whenever they were available over a two-day span — set up on-site for 12 hours a day, most of that time spent waiting for the next doctor to appear for their headshot. I’ve also photographed corporate executives starting at 6 PM, since they’re too busy running a multimillion-dollar business during the day; the evening session was specifically requested by the marketing department. On another project, I created a headshot, full-length images, and a two-minute video of a company president using a teleprompter to talk about a new manufacturing-floor process being implemented at an automobile plant.
The most important thing across all three of these examples is keeping the subject relaxed. They’re busy, stressed, and in a hurry — none of that should show up in the final product. For headshots, I’ve photographed 100 employees in just a few hours, both individual headshots and small groups of two to four people for HR to use internally. I work slowly when a project calls for it, and fast when it calls for that instead — keeping subjects relaxed and glad to have their photo or video taken, often on very tight schedules.
Executive Team Portrait
Executive Environmental Portrait
2. Corporate Office & Facility Photography
One of the most important aspects of corporate office and facility photography is lighting. I don’t go into detail with clients about how I do it, but I typically study a building before arriving on-site to find the best time of day for natural sunlight, then photograph it then. Blue hour photography gives an office or manufacturing location a striking commercial look, though there are a lot of variables in deciding whether a blue hour shoot even makes sense for a given building — sometimes it means being on-site at 5:30 AM, sometimes 7 PM, depending on the building’s position relative to the sun.
Existing lighting on the ground matters too. I’ve had the maintenance department of a ten-story building turn on every interior light at 4 AM just to keep the interior evenly lit. In recent years, that’s gotten trickier with motion-sensor light switches — inside a large manufacturing warehouse, those can be a real problem. I’ve had ten people running up and down rows 15 through 20, staying just out of frame, purely to keep the lights on and the lighting even.
Corporate Facility Exterior
Corporate Office Interior
3. Product Photography
I’ve photographed President’s Club diamond rings given to top marketing executives, jewelry of every kind, rare collectible pistols that predate the Civil War, rare coins, PPE like hard hats, five-point harnesses, and safety vests — the same gear I wear myself on industrial projects — along with soldered electronic parts, automobiles and automobile parts, grated platforms used on industrial sites, industrial valves used in municipal water systems, and machines half the size of a house.
Some of these are shot directly on white seamless paper; others are photographed separately and composited onto white seamless afterward. Many are heavy enough that it took a forklift to move each piece into position one at a time; others were small enough to sort from a bin. I track every piece as I photograph it and rename each image file with the part number. When people think of product photography, they picture widgets — but that widget might be an electrical panel in a steel mill, a diode on a circuit board, or a robot on an automotive assembly line.
White SeamlessOn the Line
4. Commercial Real Estate Photography
My commercial real estate photography and video work depends on the client. I’ve worked with leasing agencies and companies to photograph their entire portfolio of commercial buildings — exteriors from the air by drone, along with interiors and landscaped grounds. Commercial warehouses have been a regular request over the last few years, again usually shot from the air by drone, but when I’m working directly for a manufacturing client with a warehouse, I’ll also photograph the interior operations, people at work, conference rooms, and even the executives.
I’ve photographed retail shopping centers as well — sometimes blue hour imaging gives the strict glamorous commercial look a client wants, though most clients just want excellent-quality images of the building. I study every location before arriving on-site to make sure I catch the best light.
Blue Hour, Commercial Clubhouse
Commercial Warehouse, Aerial
Retail Shopping Center, Aerial
5. Advertising & Marketing Campaign Photography
Most of my clients are in-house marketing departments. That said, I also work with select advertising agencies when the opportunity arises. Agency work differs from direct client work — agency projects typically come with an explicit, detailed request specifying exactly what needs to be photographed, how it should be lit, and the angle of each shot. A detailed video script is usually provided as well, and an agency representative is typically on-site during production. Marketing department work, by contrast, is generally a request for a full library of images.
Which Type of Commercial Photography Does Your Project Need?
Many projects blend more than one of these categories — a product shoot may also call for an executive portrait, or a real estate project may need both drone exteriors and interior lifestyle shots. If you’re not sure where your project fits, reach out and we can talk through it.