Beauty & Cosmetics Product Photography.

For a beauty brand’s product pages, I shoot bottles, tubes, jars and pump dispensers on clean white, square-on with the label straight and legible. Skincare, body oils, bath products, nail polish and make-up brushes all go on one set-up, so a range looks consistent from the first product to the last.

Glossy packaging is the hard part. Black pump bottles, glass and metallic caps reflect everything around them, so I shape the light to give one clean highlight down the edge without washing out the label. Fingerprints, dust and scuffs come out in retouching.

In beauty, the shade on screen has to match the product in the hand, or the order comes back. Colour matching is part of retouching, so a coral polish reads as coral rather than orange, and a nude foundation doesn’t drift pink. Swatches on hands and nails show how the colour actually wears.

For launches, ads and Instagram I build sets around the product: nail polish dripping from the bottle into pools of colour, skincare styled with fruit and herbs, bath products with flowers, brushes fanned out on satin. Shots with hands, such as a manicure holding its matching bottle or lotion squeezed into a palm, show the product being used.

Creative sets take planning. For Nailberry’s nail polish range, every set-up was worked out before the day, so the studio time went on shooting. Send your references and product list early and I’ll plan yours the same way.

Eyeshadow, lipstick and other make-up are best shown on a face. I photograph beauty looks on models at Studio A in Kentish Town, where there are two lit make-up mirrors for the artist to work at. If you don’t have a make-up artist, I can recommend one.