Skincare and Cosmetics Product Photography for Bloom Cosmetics featuring moisturisers, facial serum, body buffs and avocado and tumeric face masks and makeup applicators

Skincare and Cosmetics Product Photography

I started off my photography career by assisting on skincare and cosmetics product photography shoots in London, back when everything was shot on film. 

First, the product was shot on Polaroid to get the lighting right, then on a test film which was sent off for processing to ensure everything looked ok, and only when everyone was satisfied with the tests were the actual photographs taken.

It took ages to get the shoot done!

Everything is much faster and more efficient now that skincare products like moisturizers and serums are photographed digitally…

I was commissioned by Bloom Cosmetics to shoot their product range for their new website.

To get started, I did a series of test shots, using flash rather than constant lighting, to give the crisp punchy image the client asked for. 

I edited and emailed these to the client to make sure that we were getting the colours and the texture that was required. A few tweaks were needed to the lighting and the edit to make sure that there were no colour casts and that the background was pure white.

I decided to shoot the easier setups first, which means the non reflective products like the gift sets, the facial puffs, the face mask jars and boxes and the applicators.

The most difficult makeup products to photograph are the shiny bottles and jars, because they reflect everything that is in the room.

To achieve the look I wanted, I created a white tent around the products, using two upright side panels and a roof of white tissue paper, which I blasted the top flash head through. I also added another remote flash inside the tent, pointing at the background to add extra bounced light and to keep the background white.

My year photographing female entrepreneurs…

Skincare and Cosmetics Product Photography