in: Photography
by: Katie Hellmuth Martin
Photos are arguably the most important assets on the web right now. Photos and images are leading the way for people to get from social platforms like Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, and onto your website. In the olden days (like...two years ago?), photography was gained by grabbing it off of the Internet, which is totally illegal and will get you served with a big fat fine, or paid for at expensive photo sharing sites like Getty, or lived with when bought from lower priced stock photo houses with mediocre options that you may have seen already on five other websites.
If you're not a retail website that has gobs of sexy images of your own inventory to choose from, what sort of photography will you share? Thanks to super smart phone cameras, Instagram filters, websites like Creative Market, and enterprising graphic designers and photographers, we have "scenes". Which are images that look like a photo out of an Ikea or Pottery Barn catalog, but it's one that your business created, and without moving or buying any furniture or brewing any coffee. See the picture above with the wooden desk? It is a series of objects that I placed together from the collection called Custom Scene Feminine Ed. Volume 1 at Creative Market.
Yeah, also know as...magic. Or Photoshop Layers. Or objects that were once photographed, then very precisely "cut out" digitally in Photoshop, and placed into a collection with other sliced and diced images, and made available to you to buy and create your own adventure.
Just today, I saw several "scenes" in my inbox. Like this one from Daily Worth:
Or this scene from a Vertical Response tweet about a webinar:
I spotted that chalkboard a mile away when I saw it on an iPad (clever, Vertical Response!), because I'd used it recently on a Tin Shingle instagram photo promoting our Valentine's Day podcast about how to pitch blogs and other short lead media:
When creating these images, you'll definitely need some tools at your fingertips. Read my "6 Tools You Need to Make a Great "Scene" for Unique Website Photography. Once you have everything lined up, freedom for unique photography is yours! Or that of your graphic designer's when you realize what can be created, and you can give your graphic design team more amazing direction for new ideas!
