{"id":3450,"date":"2024-06-14T08:21:09","date_gmt":"2024-06-14T08:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.joerivanveen.com\/blog\/?p=3450"},"modified":"2025-01-25T16:33:59","modified_gmt":"2025-01-25T16:33:59","slug":"website-photography","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.joerivanveen.com\/blog\/website-photography\/","title":{"rendered":"Website photography"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Many a website could benefit from some professionally shot photographs. Humans visiting your website, whose business you might want, recognise AI generated imagery and generic stock photography<\/a> in a microsecond. Photographs that do not seem genuine are a red flag.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Futuristic car.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

How would you like it if you went on a car-dealership website browsing through their second hand offerings, choosing a fancy model, only finding out the images were AI generated upon visiting the premises? On the other hand, what about if the cars were shot in a dimly lit barn with a phone? Would you buy a car from them?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Small business photography<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Upholstery business workspace.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The most successful website I made until now, regarding conversion rate, considering the staggeringly low amount of visitors, is for an upholstery business<\/a>. Feedback from actual paying clients is that the photography lured them in. I like to think that is because the photographs are unassuming but detailed and of actual work done on actual objects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Newly upholstered chair. See all photographs<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Therapy practice<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Therapist
Therapist at work.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Last year I shot some illustrative and portrait images of a newly established therapist, for their website<\/a> (which I did not design), in their actual practice room. Look how this makes the person real and accessible. This was done with my simple setup consisting of a Sony A7 + Voigtl\u00e4nder 35mm, the kit zoom lens for some shots and a single flash on a stand with an umbrella. This is what I also use for the furniture now, you do not need heavy or expensive stuff for these shoots to get results that work well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Portrait of a therapist (shot with Sony A7 and kit zoom lens).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

How to shoot<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Even though modern phones have usable image quality and you can follow many hipsters online that shoot professional looking photographs with them, the work seems largely to be about gimmicks. A good thing is, the trendy videos often highlight the importance of light and of good preparation of the scene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you want to shoot your small business yourself with your phone, it may take some practice rounds and investment in (continuous) lighting equipment. You could even throw in a camera like the Sony A7<\/a>, which consistently delivers better files than any phone, when used well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Learning to shoot with a one light setup is quite easy, but if you want to use your time another way, it pays to hire a photographer for a couple of hours to get real images that foster trust by communicating your actual business.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why you maybe should consider hiring a pro to shoot images for your website, if the impression you leave on your visitors is important to you. Or how to shoot yourself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3437,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59,4,31,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-corporate","category-photography","category-portrait","category-shoot"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joerivanveen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joerivanveen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joerivanveen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joerivanveen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joerivanveen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3450"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.joerivanveen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3450\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3503,"href":"https:\/\/www.joerivanveen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3450\/revisions\/3503"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joerivanveen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joerivanveen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joerivanveen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joerivanveen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}