How to Take Product Photos for TPT-The Easy Way!

If you are a TeachersPayTeachers seller, you may wrestle with taking product photos that feel professional and high-quality, but don’t require any fancy equipment. Photography is a big topic, and I have (accidentally) earned a small reputation on Instagram for knowing a little about product photography. This stems from my days as a Virtual Assistant for other TPT sellers. It was all fun and games until I volunteered to take photos to market other people’s products. Then I was all like, ‘ok wait. but do I even know what I’m doing?”

There’s a wealth of information out there about photography. And you can even find quite a bit about product photography…if you’re selling things commercially, like on Amazon. You can REALLY find quite a bit if you’re trying to stage clothing for sale.

But a printable worksheet? Uhhh. There’s not that much. So, it took me several hours of my summer last year, but I poured through blogs, articles, videos, etc. to understand the basics of photography, whether it’s for portraits, landscapes, flat lays of clothing…whatever! I took the major themes that I saw across the board, and started applying those qualities to my TPT products. The results were much prettier than what I was producing before! And the photos I was able to take for other sellers improved pretty drastically.

I credit my marketing approach as a huge component of my store’s growth from last summer until now. Getting my products in front of other people’s eyes has made a big difference in the volume of sales that I’ve had. And what makes people stop. their. scroll. and actually take a minute to look at your product? A well-designed photo!

So, upon lots of consideration of the best way to share what I know with others (because my Insta stories just were not cutting it anymore), I created a video series about TPT product photography. This is the run-down of what you need to know, but you can learn more about each topic in-depth in the videos!

Photo taken for my dear, dear friend Bri over at Sun, Sand, and Second Grade ❤️

To design a really pretty photo you need:

1.) Good lighting (either captured naturally, or designed well with the help of some artificial tools)

2.) To understand the basics of photography (composition, balance, the rule of thirds, etc.)

3.) Proper staging that emphasizes your product and does not distract from it

4.) Some quality editing (through your phone, 100% of the time. Unless you wanna over-complicate your life)

5.) If you want to use these photos for marketing on Facebook, TPT, or Pinterest, you also need to have a little graphic design sense. (Color schemes, font families, and negative space MATTER!)

If you can achieve these things, your photos will be GORGEOUS, and people will want to click on them to learn more. More clicks = more sales. It’s really as simple as that.

If you want to learn more about quality product photography, you can absolutely watch my Video series! The five videos I created are bundle on TPT to save you a little cash-money, but you can pick and choose the ones you are most interested in if you don’t want all five! They are sold individually, as well. I wanted to make sure y’all had all of the buying options possible!

Thanks for reading, friends! Let me know if you watch the videos, and please tag me in any and all photos you try out! I love to celebrate with you!!