Sophisticated fragrance photography: four dramatic styles
Commercial product photography can take many forms. I recently had fun exploring several of them
As a product photographer in North East England, I’m used to having to get creative with my backgrounds. I love to shoot environmental-style product photography images, often taking images outside where possible, but the weather doesn’t always play ball! That doesn’t mean sophisticated fragrance photography has to rely on expensive studio setups, however, pushing budgets to the max, and creating artistic burnout.
I love to get creative on any shoot, and fragrances provide the opportunity for a huge array of experimentation with lighting, backgrounds, and set pieces. I usually like to try and work everyday household items into my shoots as I’m constantly surprised by how effective things such as aluminium foil, kitchen worktops, and desk lamps can be for generating mesmerising product photo styles.
I recently did a shoot with Milano Man Wealth, an affordable but beautifully designed fragrance. I knew that I was going to have fun working with the ‘wealth’ theme; lots of reflective surfaces, shiny things, and gold. But I also wanted to explore the other associations with the modern interpretation of wealth. We’re used to seeing this depicted in shows such as Suits, Succession, and The White Lotus, so I felt that smokey office-like environments could also play a role here.
Style 1: Dark and classy
While simple, this single-light shot against a dark background gives off classy vibes
Dark tones generally work best for male fragrances, so I started out by pushing the corporate theme. Shooting against dark leather gave the first shot a cinematic styling with plenty of cues to the aforementioned TV productions. A single off-camera flash was all that was needed to give the scene some lighting direction and drama, completed by the light fall-off to the right side of the frame.
Style 2: Low-key and smoky
By gelling my flashes, and introducing some lighting effects, I could easily create a cinematic feel to this product photo
Smoke makes a fantastic addition for drama in fragrance photography. It can turn up the filmic style to the max. I didn’t even need a smoke machine for this shot; all I required was a controllable continuous light source to paint in the effect during an extended exposure. Good luck relying on AI to come up with that idea! It gave me a unique look that was identifiable but different. Throwing on a CTO gel to my flashes created the saturated colour bias, which pushed the theme of power and passion. I was uncertain if I liked it (or more to the point, if it truly hit the brand identity of the product), but I was keen to see where it went.
An alternative shot using gelled flashes with a greater presence of the background texture
Style 3: Strong backlight
For this style, I was able to create an impactful lighting effect using long exposures
Long exposure effects are always fun to play around with when shooting products. The key is always to darken the rest of the studio first. For this shot, the strong backlight effect was perfect for emphasising the brand logo on the bottle and the shape of the glass. The great thing about using a continuous light for this is that the colour of the light can be controlled to taste. In this case, I chose a warm yellow that matched the colour of the fragrance itself for a streamlined colour grade and to keep the shot on-brand.
Style 4: glitzy high-key
Doubling down on the wealthy theme, a gold, sparkly background is incredibly eye-catching
Finally, the image I had originally envisioned. This setup was a no-brainer and was ultimately the one I chose to move forward with. It has a classic billboard-esque styling to it that leverages the clear branding of the product while making the most of the strong contrast of exposure. The colour contrast, on the other hand, is low. This gives the image an almost monochromatic wash of gold. This is one of my favourite styles for high-end product photography because not only is it greatly impactful, but it’s also easy to create.
Which style is your favourite? Get in touch and let me know!
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