ChloroFluor – Product Photography Case Study: Part 1

I’m working to develop myself as a professional photographer, and I’m always looking for photographic jobs. I thought it might make an interesting blog post to hear a little about how I work, so here is a case study of one of my recent jobs. This job took place over a few weeks, and has just been completed, so I’m free to talk about it. I’d like to go into a fair bit of detail, so the case study may span a couple of blog posts, otherwise it may become too long.

The Client

The client, PDS (Professional Dentist Supplies), is a dental products supplier for professional dentists, providing equipment and materials. Contact was originally made through a workmate of my wife’s. The client is a family business, and Naomi’s workmate – a friend of the family – knew of me as a photographer, so when PDS needed some photography done, I was asked to quote.

The Brief

PDS make Chloroflour, an anti-bacterial mouth gel, that is mostly sold through dentist surgeries, and they wanted to try selling the product through magazine advertisements. The brief was to come up with a concept for the ad, photograph the product and relevant components, and compile them into a digital file, ready to be sent to the various magazine publishers for including in their magazines.

If possible the ad should emphasise that the product kills the bacteria that causes plaque and decay, and protects the whole mouth, including teeth and gums.

The Quote

The first thing we did was to break down the job into the various parts that make up the whole, so that we could estimate the time taken, and from there, work out the costs. We came up with the following list:

• Develop 3 concepts and produce mock ups for the client to choose from
• Source necessary props (purchase of props would differ depending on the concept chosen, prop cost would be quoted additionally after this)
• Photograph all the elements of the advertisement
• Process photos and composite into final layout
• Come up with slogans to be used in the ads
• Assemble the advertisement using additional wording provided
• Adapt the assembled ad for each magazine according to their specs

Naomi, a graphic designer would take care of the final two points, and would be creative assistant throughout the job.

Once we had this breakdown, we estimated the time and came up with a final cost. The quote was prepared and sent to the client. Within a week it was approved, so we started brainstorming ideas.

The Concepts

Over the next several days, Naomi and I brainstormed ideas for the ad, sketching with a notepad and pencil whenever inspiration struck. We chose three concepts that we liked, and developed them a bit further by making mock ups on the computer with images found on Google. These mock ups were simply to illustrate the idea to the client.

Concept 3 needed a prop from PDS, a set of teeth. They dropped it around for us at our request, and I took a couple of quick photos to make the concept mock up seen below. I’ll discuss this particular one in more detail in a separate post, as it’s interesting in itself.

Concept 1

Concept 2

Concept 3

End of Part 1

In part 2, I’ll talk about the process of figuring out how to get all the stuff we need to bring the concept together, including finding props, shooting all the elements, processing and compositing into the final image.