 Smartphone e-commerce photography, setting the stage with a limited budget. Hey guys, are you trying to do e-commerce? You need to get some good photos and you're concerned about it? Well, this is the video for you because in this video, I'm gonna show you exactly how to set the stage so that you have some incredible pictures of your products for online sales. I'm gonna show you what to do, the equipment you need, I'll give you a list of everything. Watch this video to the very end and don't forget to subscribe with that subscribe button down there. Don't forget to also ring the bell to turn on all bell notifications so you're notified each and every single time I go live. Now let's get right to it. The first thing we wanna talk about is materials. What materials do you need? Now this video obviously is about using a smartphone. I wouldn't recommend using a flip phone for this. I think you do need a smartphone. I think most smartphones that you've gotten in the past few years, even ones that you got five, six, seven years ago probably have a good enough camera in them and they keep evolving. They keep getting better and better and better. I mean, the camera on my smartphone is so incredibly good that I almost wonder why I use the DSLR camera. I am recording this with the DSLR but it has different effects. It does different things so that's why I use that. But the first thing you need is a smartphone. Gotta have a smartphone to do any of it. So if you don't have a smartphone there's no point watching this video. You can go ahead and leave now. Get out of here, go on, get, get, get. When you get a smartphone come back and see me. But once you've got a smartphone you wanna continue on. What's the next thing we need? We're gonna need some tape. Yes, tape. Because we're gonna build a box to take these pictures with. The next thing we're gonna need is what? You're gonna need some foam core that is 24 inches by 36 inches. White foam core, that's what you need. I'll put a picture of that up on the screen here so you can kinda see what I'm talking about. And then the next thing you're gonna need is some white poster board that is 24 inches by 36 inches or larger. So you're gonna need this white poster board. These are the basic elements you're gonna need. In addition to that, you're gonna need a table of some sort. It can be a desk, it could be a stand, it could be whatever. And then you're gonna need, because you don't have money for lights, a window, okay? A window with some lights. You need light coming in. Now in this office here I have lights that are on me but I also have four eight big windows that I'm facing and I have the sunlight coming in this way too. So that makes for really good lighting. Matter of fact, I prefer the lighting through a window over these stand up lights any day. However, I try to make it a little bit brighter so we add these lights to it. But if given a choice between having a light that you would purchase and a window with light coming through it, I would go with a window with light coming through it any day. So those are the basic elements of what you need. Now I wanna talk about how I want you to set up your light box to take these pictures. So I'm gonna put a diagram up on the screen and if you look at it, look at this diagram real quick here. You can see what the window is, that's number one, okay? So you wanna make sure your workspace is close to a window that provides ample natural light. Much more flattering than any kind of flash you could ever get. Natural light will really provides the best possible lighting option for your photos if your lighting equipment is not in your budget. Now, lighting equipment can help, but you don't need it. See, I think that stops a lot of people. If it's a rainy or cloudy day, I would consider postponing your shoot until the weather permits you with a little bit more sunlight. Everybody, while I will say everybody, maybe if you live in a place where there's no sun for three months, you may have to get some lights. But if you've got sunlight, you're pretty good with that. Now, the next thing you wanna do, step two, is you wanna move the table or other large flat surface close to the window to set your stage. Now, make sure that there is enough room around the surface for you to walk around. If you can't get around what you're filming, it's not gonna do you much good. So you're gonna need some space. Pick a window that has some walk around area to it. If you have that space, you can walk around, you can get the different angles you need. Super important that you do that. The next thing you wanna do is set your background for your photo. That's where that white poster board comes in that I talked about in the beginning in the supply list. Your goal is to take shots of the product without anything around it. That might really distract from the product itself. Okay, so we really wanna highlight the product. Plus, if you're cross-selling your product on other sites like Amazon, most require images of your product on a stark white background. So that's what you're gonna need. Otherwise, you can't even upload your photos there. If you're planning on taking a few promotional shots as well for ads or social media, you can add additional elements like pattern fabric, plants, rocks, I don't know, whatever you wanna do to make your photo stand out. Just make sure not to add so much that it will take away from the product itself. I think a lot of people do that. They will do some photos and they got like, I'm gonna really make this look good and maybe they're doing recipes. So they add a garnish on the plate and they add a glass of wine. They add some type of placemat and they add their pots and pans behind it before you know it. You forgot that there was a recipe and you're supposed to be showing them food. So don't overdo that stuff. Now, once you've got all of this set up, you're gonna wanna get your phone and you're gonna wanna take pictures. Now, I always get asked this question, what angle and how many? All in as many as you can is the answer because when you're taking pictures of stuff, what you see on your iPhone or your Android, whatever kind of smartphone you have is vastly different from what is actually gonna come out in that digital photo. I suggest that you take a whole bunch of different angles of that product. We sell canned meats at my survival food company, Survival Cave Food, you gotta check that out, Survival Cave Food. When we're taking pictures of the food on the plate, we don't just take pictures of the food on the plate, we take pictures of the can of meat that it comes in. We take pictures of maybe we'll make a sandwich out of the beef or maybe we'll put the beef on a plate or maybe we'll make pasta and beef. We try to have a whole bunch of different variations of what that product is as opposed to just a picture of a can of meat that's not gonna sell it too well. In addition to that, we try to have a lot of different angles. We do it from the right, we do it from the left, we do it from the top. We blur the background. We try to do all kinds of different filters. Maybe you've got different filters on your smartphone that you can use. Then we will take that picture and we'll lighten it. We will darken it. Sometimes we'll add words to it. Sometimes we won't. It takes a lot of work to get a good picture but think about what the old saying says, a picture can represent a thousand words, okay? So if a picture is a thousand words, wouldn't you wanna take some time? I mean, I take literally hundreds of pictures of the same thing to get the right picture. You don't have to take that many, but you do have to take multiple pictures. You never know which one is gonna look great and which one is not gonna look so good. So it's really important to take a lot of pictures in a lot of different angles and try different filters. Another thing I like to do, and of course this video was about taking pictures of your product on a white background. I know that. However, other things you can do if you wanna add to your picture album or of your product are showing people using your product. Maybe if you're doing clothing, obviously you could have a model wearing the clothing. If you're using tools that you're selling, some type of tool, maybe you could show that tool in action. Maybe it's drilling a hole, maybe it's cutting a board, whatever it is. All those kind of pictures can also help out because they can explain to your viewer exactly how they can use the product. So that's another good one. Remember, if you're putting your pictures up on Amazon or some of these other sites and it's not your own site, they want a plain white background. They want certain things and you gotta adhere to that. But on your website, you can do whatever you want. You can change that up a lot. So I hope this helped you out. I hope that you got something out of it. I'm not a photographer, but I can get some pretty darn good pictures now. And guess what? Even if you're not a photographer, you can too. It's a matter of just trying. That's the thing I tell people more than anything else. If you're not good at something, that's exactly what you should try. You'll never know how good you can get at it. Never know how good you can get at it. I can tell you years ago I would have never done a video on YouTube to try to train people at stuff. And my wife would tell you the same things. She would have never done that. She was a very shy person. But the more things you try, the more confidential gain and the better you'll get at it and the more feedback you'll get. And yeah, do I get trolls? Sure I do. I get trolls. I don't care. I feel sorry for them at this point. So if you're a troll and you wanna put something below, feel free to do so. I feel sorry for you. Because they usually are doing this to get attention. They wanna get something back. So I'm telling you this because you may be afraid to do some of the stuff you wanna do right now. Maybe you're afraid to even take a picture of your product. Somebody's gonna make fun of it. Who cares? Who cares? The point is if you take these pictures and you have some good pictures you may make some money. You will make some money. I know I've done it for years. You will make some money. Okay, let me give you that confidence. If you have any questions about selling stuff online, taking pictures, I'm not a photographer, I will tell you that. But I have done some of this and I have made money off the pictures I took. So if you have any questions about that feel free to put your comments below. If you wanna know any of the equipment we use feel free to put those comments below. If you've had some success doing this and you'd like to advise other people put it in the comments below. We wanna hear from you. Have you noticed? I wanted to hear your comments. Don't forget to subscribe. Hit that big red button down there. Turn it gray. Don't forget to ring the bell. Turn on all bell notifications so you're notified each and every single time I go live. In addition to that I am offering you a $97 course for how much what? Free, free. If you look in the description below there's a course down there you can get absolutely free. It's a $97 course. Thank you so much for listening to this video. I really appreciate it and I'll see you in the next one. Hey, thanks for watching my video. Don't forget to subscribe to my channel and click that little bell right here so you can be notified every time I do a new video. Also click on one of those videos there. Keep watching on my channel.