Elevate your Product Photos: Tips for Non-Photographers – with Karen Moreland

Welcome to the Bring youg Product Idea to Life podcast. This is the podcast for you if you're getting started selling products or if you'd like to create your own product to sell.

I'm Vicki Weinberg, a product creation coach and Amazon expert. Every week I share friendly practical advice as well as inspirational stories from small businesses. Let's get started. Hi.

Today on the podcast I'm speaking to Karen Moreland.

Karen helps non photographers so Amazon sellers, Etsy sellers and other small business owners professional quality product photos without becoming photographers.

So Karen is really passionate about the fact that you don't have to learn all about photography or be an expert in it to take quality product photographs yourself.

And in this episode she explains why she thinks that and gives us all some real practical hands on things we can do to take brilliant product photos ourselves, whether that's using a camera or using a smartphone. I found this conversation really, really interesting.

I'm not a photograph know much about how to take good photos, but I got some great tips from Karen and I am absolutely certain that you will too. So I would love now to introduce you to Karen. Hi Karen, thank you so much for being here.

Thank you. So good to be here as well.

Can we please start with you introducing yourself, your business and what you do?

Absolutely. I'm Karen Moreland and I'm a 13 year portrait photographer turned educator and I teach results based techniques to non togs or non photographers.

We'll get into that here shortly, I'm sure.

Amazing. Thank you. So you've had such an interesting journey from being a photographer yourself to being an educator. Now can you share how that happened?

Yes.

So I've been a portrait photographer for 13 years and about 10 years ago I decided I wanted to also start teaching because I had so much to teach other people and be helpful with. So I began a YouTube channel at the time and I also taught some in person classes.

And the beginning of this year I decided I was ready to go all in on my online course business. But I actually built everything backwards from how they say to do things.

So the online course industry will tell you, like go find your audience and survey them and find out exactly what they want, but build your course around what they need and what they want. But I didn't do any of that actually. I actually built my course for somebody like me and what would have helped me when I started my whole journey.

So when I got finished building my course I realized like this is not actually for aspiring photographers at all. Like it wasn't enough and I Got to thinking about it and I was like, this is actually for creatives and business owners and moms and hobbyists.

Like, people who just needed results instead of, like, the whole journey. And so I'd been working with AI quite a bit, like, strategizing my business and going back and forth.

And I said one day, I was like, so my course is actually for non togs, or people who are not photographers. And I thought that was really funny at the time.

But then I got to thinking, I was like, wait a minute, I might have actually stumbled on something here.

So I started doing some research, and I discovered that there were 5.6 million Etsy shop owners alone, as well as millions of other small business owners and, of course, hobbyists and moms. Like, there's this massive group of people that had been completely overlooked. And the photography education industry is an $850 million industry.

And, like, how could they have missed this massively underserved market? Like, sitting in plain sight.

And so I got to thinking about this whole disconnect, and I was like, what they're selling is courses to aspiring photographers, and these people are not that. So as I got to realizing there was this whole market, that's when I created the non tog category. And here we are.

Oh, thank you so much for explaining that journey. I think that's really fascinating.

And you're right, I hadn't thought about that as a market either, because you're absolutely right that as business owners, we often do have to take our own photographers. So my audience sell products. And obviously you need product photography for your website, Etsy, Amazon, anywhere you're selling.

And I didn't think about the fact that there was somewhere in between taking, like, DIY photos on your smartphone and hiring a professional photographer. So it sounds like what you're doing is bridging that gap a little bit.

Absolutely, yes.

So what does. So you've used the term non togs a few times. So tell us what a non talk. How would you define a non talk?

So a non talk is simply anybody, like an Amazon or Etsy seller or a small business owner or anybody who's needing really great photos, but they have zero interest in becoming a photographer. And let me give you an example of Susie. Susie has an online candle business and she just needs great photos to sell her candles online.

But she's frustrated. She's Googling at midnight, why are my photos so dark?

And she's going down the whole YouTube rabbit hole, and she's watching all these tutorials and getting conflicting advice and stuff is like really confusing her and she's ready to give up, basically. But all she needs are photos of her candles that say, I smell amazing. Buy me.

Instead of candles and photos that are saying, hey, I was shot in a dirty basement. You know, you're not going to sell any candles that way with ugly photos. So she's just conf.

Because there's this whole thing where she's trying to figure out just a solution to her problem and she doesn't want to be a photographer, she wants to sell candles and that's it. So Susie's your classic non talk.

That makes sense because I'm guessing for a non talk, you don't need to be an expert photographer. You don't need to know everything there is to know about lenses and lighting. You just need to know how to take great photos of your product.

Is that right?

Yes, absolutely.

Amazing. So many of my listeners sell on Amazon or Etsy or other marketplaces.

Let's start with what are some of the most common photography mistakes you see product sellers making? And then of course, we'll talk about all the things they could be doing differently.

Absolutely. I see a few different things quite a bit. The biggest issue I see is bad lighting. People are not lighting their product up very well.

And so people can't accurately tell what it is or it just doesn't make it look great. Right. And the next thing I see is people aren't making that first initial listing photo, their hero shot.

Like, they're not putting it on the white backdrop. They're not centering it perfectly and putting space around the whole thing, that sort of thing.

So they're not putting their best foot forward with their photos. And then I also noticed that people are not showing size or context to how big or small their item is. And a lot of times people can't tell.

I mean, you might list that in the description, but people don't always read that. Or maybe they still don't understand the size of a product.

So just being able to show some relevance and, you know, something easily is just putting a hand in the photo, like holding the product if you can, or having something else that's in the frame that's relevant, that people can kind of relate, hey, this is, you know, according to a common object about a certain size. So that's an easy way to show people how big your product is.

And then the last thing I tend to notice is people are not always showing how a product is used.

And while it might seem obvious to the seller what a product is for it's not always obvious to the buyer and I see this a lot with crafters, so they make all these really cool things. I'm always watching stuff on TikTok and I love this stuff. I would buy half of it, you know, but I wouldn't know what to do with it necessarily.

I might buy something and put it on my desk and say, oh, that looks cool. But unless you're really showing what the product is used for, you're kind of doing a disservice to the purchaser.

That makes a lot of sense. And I think I'm building everything you said.

I can think of examples like my own clients because I see a lot of these and I think the thing about how the product is used is probably the most common one that I see. And I mean I've worked with some brands in the past year where their products have been quite unique.

They've been something that is relatively new to the market, so customers perhaps wouldn't know what it was or how to use it.

And that's something that I'm talking about a lot, is that people need to see things in context because like while you need those beautiful white background shots to show the product, if someone doesn't know how they're going to use it, then why would they buy it?

Right? Exactly.

And so what do you think?

What difference do you think professional looking photos make to conversions on and click through on sites like Amazon Etsy, particularly marketplaces other than your own website? What kind of, what sort of results are you seeing from your clients who are really working on their photography?

I feel like professional photos make such a huge difference with conversions because I mean, especially with Amazon buyers, they scroll really fast and your photo basically has two seconds to say, this solves your problem. Buy it now. Right. And so if you don't have professional photos, you're not building trust in people. Like your photos build trust very easily.

And it's not that you have to have perfect photos or that your listing photos have to look like everybody else's, but it's more about like showing clarity and confidence in your images. Because having professional quality photos indicates that you have a quality product. People kind of equate the photos to the quality of the product.

So being able to really give off your best foot forward with your photos, it's going to help your sales quite a bit.

I agree.

Particularly in those like you say, those few seconds you come up in the search results of that Amazon Etsy anywhere else there are so there's so much isn't there as a customer, there are all these photos and like a little bit of text, there's a lot to look at and I tend to go for the one that catches my eye the most, as I'm sure most people do. And the photography, even if you're not consciously thinking it, I think the photography plays a big part in that.

Yes, absolutely.

So for founders who can't afford professional photographers, what are a few simple ways they can immediately improve their product photos that they're taking themselves?

First and foremost, good lighting. I'm going to harp on this every single time because, I mean, window light is free and it makes a world of difference to your product photos.

And the next thing I'm going to say is the angle that you shoot from. And there's really only two that you need to think about.

Like if you have a two dimensional product, like maybe you have cards or books or socks, it doesn't matter. You want to really be like shooting overhead directly at like a 90 degree angle. And this is going to do the whole lay flat vibes in your photo.

And if you have something that's three dimensional, you just want to shoot at a 45 degree angle. You basically just want to be able to highlight that there's depth and dimension to your product.

And the last thing you want is to take a three dimensional product and shoot it straight overhead and then it's like flattening your whole image like you're not going to be able to see it as well. So pick the angle that's going to best highlight all the features of your product that you really want to showcase.

Amazing. Thank you. And so coming back to lighting, do you need to pay for like a light box or is natural light through the windows?

Is that, is that good enough?

Natural light is amazing. Like you could go your whole, I mean, the whole time just using natural light.

And honestly, not everybody has perfect windows in their house or their studio or wherever they are. So you can go around it.

There's a few different things you can do, but like even using doorway light or a covered porch or somewhere where you can diffuse that light even if you have a window, but maybe the sunlight is really direct, you can take a sheer curtain or something just to kind of soften that blow of the bright light. You don't want harsh shadows on your, your product.

But for the most part, like, being able to find good light is the easiest thing versus going out and buying lighting. And there are other ways to do that and inexpensive solutions. But for the most part, natural light can serve you most of the way.

I think that's really useful. Thank you. That's good people to hear. And how about cameras?

Because for someone who, like as a non tog, as you've coined it, and so they're not looking to get into photography, they just want to get really, really nice photos for their websites. Do you need to be investing in a really good camera or are there other ways you can do this?

Heck no. You don't need any equipment that's fancy. And I will all day long say, listen, like, find the most affordable option.

I don't care if it's a camera your grandmother gave you. You know, like, there's so many different options and all it has to do is be able to take a photo of what you need and make sure it's clear.

And I mean, there's so many people that'll go out and buy a DSLR or a mirrorless camera and they don't even have a clue how to use it. And then they're confused and it just makes the problem worse.

So, I mean, a cell phone takes amazing photos, especially with products like, I think that's probably what a lot of these sellers are doing right now. I mean, that are not wanting to go the whole photography route.

So, I mean, just the capabilities that we have with all the photography tools right now, it's amazing. So I like to say you can use anything, really.

Thank you. I really like that you said you can use your phone because I think for most.

Yes.

I mean, I don't own a camera anymore, I'll be really honest because I've got a smartphone, it's got a really good camera, it's probably the best camera I've ever had and it's in my phone. So. Get one. Yeah. I'm so pleased with you.

Exactly.

Something I think a lot of us can struggle with when we're, especially when we're trying something new. Is perfection getting everything right. What's your advice to help people balance wanting perfect photos with actually getting their photos done?

Because let's be honest, we could spend a long time trying to get the perfect shot and then editing. How do we balance that, Karen?

Well, as a perfectionist myself, I can tell you that done is better than perfect every single time.

And yes, you can spend three hours trying to make sure your photo is exactly perfect and that everything looks the way you want it to, or you can focus on three different things.

You can focus on making sure your product is well lit, making sure that you're highlighting the best features about your product and also making sure people can easily tell what it is from your thumbnail image. That gets overlooked sometimes. But if you're focusing on those three things like that's it, move on and.

Be done, that's really good advice. Thank you. And actually I mentioned editing. When? Just then. Do you. Is that something you teach?

Do you teach your students how to edit their photos or are they taking photos that don't require editing? As a non photographer, I don't know much about this. Apologies if that's a tough question.

This is great. I'm glad you're not familiar with it because I can talk to you in the way that I would anyone else.

Yes, I do actually teach editing and the approach I take with non talks is that it's very simple. You do not need to get into the weeds with trying to figure out Photoshop and Lightroom, like that's not necessary. If you want to, you can.

And there are some user friendly programs, but there's actually a few different ones that can be used and people really only need to focus on like a few different things, like just exposure. If you didn't get it right in your camera, if you're. If your image is too dark or it's too bright, you can fix that.

And you can fix cropping and making sure it's the right angle and that sort of thing. And you can look at the color temperature or how warm or cold the photo looks.

Have you ever taken a photo and you're like, why does this thing look blue? And in real life it's nice and warm and colorful, but it just looks cold? You know, you can look at a photo and see that pretty easily.

And you know, there's. In your photos app on your phone, there's the section where you can edit your photos and there's these little sliders, right?

And it's the same in most photo editing programs actually, and they all have the same stuff.

So you're looking for those simple little things like exposure and color temperature and you know, cropping and straightening your image and that's really all that you need to do. It doesn't have to be complicated at all.

I'm so glad you said that. That's really simple and that's a really good point about temperature as well.

Because something I've noticed, and I've definitely brought things before where I've bought something thinking it was maybe going to be a pale blue and then it arrives and it's white and you're like, yeah, that's a bit. That's a bit off and I can see. So that's obviously because they haven't adjusted the temperature of the image.

Yes, exactly.

So these sound like really sensible things for people to check when they're reviewing their photos as well.

Yes, absolutely. And once you start looking at that stuff, you can't unsee it. So you'll get familiar with, okay, my image just needs this, this and this.

And it doesn't have to get complicated, but you'll get familiar with what you think a good photo will look like when you change it and then you can compare it to what you were doing before and then you'll just naturally start to gravitate towards making your images look a certain way with a few simple tools.

And it sounds like it's something as well where once you take one of product photos and then as you do it more often, you're going to get better, you're going to work out which room is the best for your lighting, like, where's the best?

Actually I'm thinking this is something that might sound daunting to anyone who hasn't done it, but once you get started, I assume it just gets easier every time.

Yes, and you're absolutely right, it does feel overwhelming for most people. So it doesn't have to be that way.

And just I think with the right language and the right person showing you that it can be easy, people can adapt to that sort of learning a lot easier than traditional photography education.

Yeah, and actually that's something I wanted to touch on. Karen, you talk about teaching results rather than like the technical mastery.

Why do you think so many entrepreneurs struggle with the traditional ways of learning photography?

I think a lot of entrepreneurs trying to sell products, a lot of them might be creative.

And while they may be creative in their own craft, they may not be creative about photography and they don't so much think in terms of like rules and structure and theories the way that traditional, traditional learners think. So and they may not also see photography as something they want to do, they see it as something they have to do.

So them looking at a photography course going, I just need results. Why do I need to sit through a nine hour course talking about F stops and color theory and ISO, like this is not easily solving my problem.

So I feel like there's that disconnect there. And like I said, no one's speaking their language so they tend to resist the traditional route of learning photography for all of those reasons.

That makes a lot of sense.

Now you've mentioned in your website and when we spoke before the call, Cameron, that you're neurodivergent and has that shaped the way that you teach and or structure your courses?

Yes, absolutely. And I have a short answer and a long answer for this.

The short answer is my brain thinks differently and it happens to think really fast most of the time. So that tends to result in me being a lot more direct in the way that I teach and I see things a certain way.

And I just want to answer the question like I don't believe in fluff or having complicated jargon, like that's not necessary. And I like to say I teach at the speed of thought because I respect people's time.

Like I don't want people to show up and expect me to help them and then all of a sudden they are sitting through a long course and all of this stuff, like none of that's necessary. I want people to feel like they're getting solutions quickly and easily and that it makes sense.

And the long answer is that there are many different forms of neurodivergence. And honestly I'm just now learning about all this stuff and it's so fascinating.

There's so many different ways that people's brains can think differently. And I found out this year that I have ADHD and as a 45, almost 46 year old woman, this was life changing for me.

Like I it explained a lot of stuff and things started to make sense that never did before.

So as I started to get used to how my brain works and thinking about things differently and realizing, wait a minute, I have something, some strengths here that I need to stop thinking our weaknesses, right, I started looking at things differently and the more I realized that I think in a, you know, problem solution kind of mindset, I was looking at this whole picture of the photography education industry. My brain also is really good at detecting patterns. Like I'm not so much of a linear thinker.

I kind of see in constellations almost like I just pick out little things here and there and it all kind of pieces together. Like I love puzzles and that's just what I do with a lot of things.

So as I looked at this whole gap in the market and realized there was this massive disconnect, I started to think, well, if I think this way, like there's gotta be people out there that feel this way too. There has to be. I gotta find my people. I want to know that this is a real thing and that I'm not just imagining it.

So I thought, okay, let me look at my metrics, let me find Some proof here. I looked through my YouTube videos and my highest viewed video has over 242,000 views. And it is a results based video.

It is not about theory or anything like that. It's actually just a three minute video showing people how to shoot a product on a truly white backdrop.

And the amazing thing about it was people absolutely loved the video. They got a lot of value from it. But I realized that it wasn't photographers watching this video so much.

It was actually the Amazon sellers and Etsy sellers and people that were just trying to sell their products online and they needed it to fit in on these websites to look like it was, you know, a quality product.

So it was just creating a solution in a very direct way that made sense to them, you know, so I thought, all right, if there are these people out here, I see that they're finding the help with what I'm doing, sharing and giving them, then I need to start talking to this market of non talks. First of all, people don't know what a non talk is. We've got to educate people, right? We got to get the word out there.

So I started to re pivot all of my messaging in my business and within 24 hours of re pivoting my message to non togs, I sold my first online course. And that's when it really resonated with me that people weren't previously finding something out there that they really needed.

And with the photography education industry serving aspiring photographers and realizing that's not them, but here's somebody who can actually speak my language and get me just results directly, you know, that really, that was huge.

So I feel like just the whole backwards approach of thinking and thinking outside the box in a way that made sense to me and thinking maybe there's other people that think differently too. I think that's exactly why this worked. You know, I was able to solve a problem.

I think that makes so much sense.

And I think particularly for anything like photography, which is a skill, but also something like something that's required for selling products, you need to know how to do it, but you don't necessarily need to know the why. I'm totally with you because I think as a business owner we've got so many things we need to do, we just need to know.

Like it's like, I don't know, you're trying to set up an automation. Automation and mailchimp. You just want a video or resource that tells you do this, this, this and this and it works.

Yes.

You don't need to See, every. You don't need to coded, you just need the answer.

And I think that makes a lot of sense because we're busy, we don't have the time to be sitting through a lot of fear. I mean, if we want to, that's something else. But I think. Right, absolutely right.

What you've identified is that most of us don't want or need that, we just want results.

Yes.

And I want to interject something here on this topic is that I am actually living proof that this whole methodology at the highest level, like in 13 years of running my portrait business, I've never read my camera manual. I couldn't tell you what all the buttons on my camera mean. I really couldn't.

And honestly, I don't need to know because my clients have always been really happy and I've always taken amazing photos and if there's a button, I don't know how it works. I'll figure it out if I need to.

So I feel like if it can work at the highest level, it occurred to me that it can work for anybody, especially people just needing a simple problem solved. So having this whole results over theory mentality is really strong suit, especially for people who, yeah, they don't want that journey.

They don't want to become a photographer. They just want to sell their stuff.

Thank you. And what advice would you give to someone who feels they're not creative enough or not technical enough to take good photos themselves?

Because I think someone could easily listen to us, but. But you know, we all have that thing inside us where we go, it wouldn't work for me. It can't be that easy. Everyone else can do it, but I couldn't.

What advice would you give?

I would say you absolutely can do this. If I can run a portrait business for 13 years without ever reading my camera manual, you can do this too.

And the thing is, is like just figure out what it is that you need. Exactly. If you need product photos, just all you need the system that you can batch your stuff and rinse and repeat. Right. It's not rocket science.

It doesn't have to be complicated. And creating a system like that that works for you doesn't even have to be creative.

It just solves one problem or however many little problems you have about photos and you move on. So yeah, you can absolutely do it.

Thank you. I honestly think you have made this sound so doable. Good question.

My final question, Karen, if you could give one piece of advice to someone listening who wants to improve their product photography, but they're not sure where to start. What would that be?

I would say start with lighting every time. Good natural window light is going to save the majority of your product photos and start converting those to sales.

That's brilliant advice. Thank you and really doable as well. So thank you. I really like that your advice is something we can actually like all implement.

Thank you so so much for everything you share Karen. I'm going to link to all your socials, your YouTube, your website.

Everywhere in the show notes people come and find you and thank you so much for your time. Awesome.

Thank you so much. I've enjoyed this. Vicki.

Thank you so much for listening right to the end of this episode.

Do remember that you can get the Fullback catalogue and lots of free resources on my website vickyweinberg.com Please do remember to rate and review this episode if you enjoyed it and also share it with a friend who you think might find it useful. Thank you again and see you next week.