Ever wondered how you can make your educational resources stand out in the crowded TPT marketplace? Join us as we sit down with Kelly Harvill, a speech-language pathologist turned professional photographer who has mastered the art of product photography and mock-ups for teacher sellers. Kelly shares her incredible journey and invaluable tips on how to create eye-catching, realistic mock-ups that can elevate your product's presentation. From understanding the importance of professional lighting to the nuances of styling, you’ll gain insights that can transform how you showcase your digital and print products.
Imagine saving hours on product presentation while still achieving a professional look. Kelly explains how using pre-made backgrounds and movable pieces in your mock-ups can simplify your workflow and make your resources more appealing to potential buyers. Perfect for busy educators, these techniques allow you to focus on what you do best—teaching—while still providing high-quality, branded visuals for your products. Whether you're a seasoned TPT seller or just starting out, you’ll find practical advice on maintaining brand consistency and using high-quality images to attract more customers.
Don’t miss our discussion on the innovative "make and take" concept, designed to offer hands-on learning for creating effective mock-ups. Kelly explains how free photo elements and the Mock-up Mastery Facebook group can support your creative process. Plus, learn about the upcoming Teacher Seller Summit and how you can stay connected with a community of like-minded educators. Tune in to discover how to revolutionize your product displays and set yourself apart in the competitive world of educational resources.
Ever wondered how you can make your educational resources stand out in the crowded TPT marketplace? Join us as we sit down with Kelly Harvill, a speech-language pathologist turned professional photographer who has mastered the art of product photography and mock-ups for teacher sellers. Kelly shares her incredible journey and invaluable tips on how to create eye-catching, realistic mock-ups that can elevate your product's presentation. From understanding the importance of professional lighting to the nuances of styling, you’ll gain insights that can transform how you showcase your digital and print products.
Imagine saving hours on product presentation while still achieving a professional look. Kelly explains how using pre-made backgrounds and movable pieces in your mock-ups can simplify your workflow and make your resources more appealing to potential buyers. Perfect for busy educators, these techniques allow you to focus on what you do best—teaching—while still providing high-quality, branded visuals for your products. Whether you're a seasoned TPT seller or just starting out, you’ll find practical advice on maintaining brand consistency and using high-quality images to attract more customers.
Don’t miss our discussion on the innovative "make and take" concept, designed to offer hands-on learning for creating effective mock-ups. Kelly explains how free photo elements and the Mock-up Mastery Facebook group can support your creative process. Plus, learn about the upcoming Teacher Seller Summit and how you can stay connected with a community of like-minded educators. Tune in to discover how to revolutionize your product displays and set yourself apart in the competitive world of educational resources.
This week on the podcast, we have a very special guest, kelly Harville, who's been in the TPT space for a very long time as a product photographer and a mock-up specialist, and today she's going to be sharing some tips for getting your mock-ups on TPT to look more realistic, to look more branded and to better represent the quality of your resource overall. I cannot wait for you guys to meet Kelly. Hey Kelly, how are you? I'm great. Lauren, how are you doing? I'm fantastic. I'm so excited to have you on the podcast. We were kind of chatting before we started and said like we've both kind of seen each other around for so long but we've never officially met, so it's really cool to have you here.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I feel like I know you because I listened to it in the car on the way to school or on the way home from school, and so it's so fun to actually see like a moving face instead of just a photo. That's awesome.
Speaker 1:
So you're going to be sharing everything to do with mock-ups today. You're like the mock-up queen and you have an incredible membership for teacher authors, which I'm sure we'll talk about later on in the episode. But you do so much to make mock-ups realistic and accessible for people, for teacher authors, and so I'm really excited to have you talk about that today. First, can you just start by just introducing yourself, telling everyone a little bit about you, who you are and kind of what you do?
Speaker 2:
Sure, I'm Kelly. I'm from Speaking of Images and I'm a school-based speech language pathologist. I currently work in schools on an assessment team, a preschool assessment team. So my entire population I work with are between the ages of two and five and they're my favorite people.
Speaker 2:
And then I've been a professional photographer for a very long time and I used to do people photography.
Speaker 2:
I used to do adventure sessions with family, so if they'd go to the lake and meet up every summer with their cousins and they wanted some images that kind of just show that so the kids could have them later, I would go and do those kinds of photo shoots.
Speaker 2:
And then I kind of morphed into doing some branding photography, specifically for teacher sellers. So I was very fortunate to go on Shelly Reese's original meetup that she did in Denver and I asked her she didn't know me at all and I asked her hey, could I just volunteer and do a branding shoot for every all the 20 something women that are here if they want to do it, just to kind of see if this is something that this population would like? And she was like sure, and we were there for a weekend and by the end of the weekend I pretty much know all 21 to 23 of them got in front of my camera, which takes a lot of guts when you're not coming to a retreat prepared to do this. Yeah, and it was super fun and I also had that opportunity to kind of talk to them. And Kim, why am I blanking on her name? You know who I'm talking about Anyway she did a full presentation on cover photography.
Speaker 2:
Yes, I'll thank Kim Miller, so she did a whole presentation while we were there on product photography and so we kind of morphed together and we had conversations with everybody that was there and we were asking them you know, what's most challenging for you in your product photography? And a lot of the women there said you know, I'm really intimidated by the photography part of it. So by the end of the weekend I was kind of showing them examples and said, well, what if I could shoot kind of backgrounds like this for you and then you just had to drop up like a PNG or a screenshot in what would you be up for that?
Speaker 1:
And they're like yeah, so that's kind of how it all started. I love that, which kind of takes us into like what a mock-up is right, which is just shooting the background and then layering images on top of that. So can you talk a little bit about that? Like pare it way down for us when we're talking about a mock-up, versus utilizing a mock-up that's already created, versus styling and shooting your own product photography.
Speaker 2:
So to me, I consider a mock-up like a frame for your product. Your product should be the star of the show, but if you're, you know these have been used for a long time in lots of different industries. So if you go on to Etsy and you look up a t-shirt, you want to buy a t-shirt. When they show those women wearing the t-shirt, or in any online store on Amazon, those are all pretty much mock-ups of a person and then they just switch out the t-shirt so you can see what does this really look like on a person, instead of just taking a picture of the t-shirt laying on a bed or something. So that's a mock-up in that particular world. In our world, it's basically setting up all the props and shooting it. And I shoot with the DSLR like a professional camera and so that the lighting is good, the styling there's something to do with styling. It's not just throw some pencils down and it's going to look professional.
Speaker 2:
The whole idea of it is to make life easier for the teacher seller, because you don't have to be every single job we feel like we do. We have to be the marketer, we have to be the creator, we have to be the photographer, we have to be the marketer, we have to be the creator, we have to be the photographer, we have to be the YouTube star, all of it. So I'm just trying to take some things off of those sellers plates and that's the part I like to do. So that's to me what a mock-up is. It's a frame for your product, but your product should be the star of the show and not drowning in a lot of props. That's my professional take on it.
Speaker 1:
I love it. So when we're talking about mock-ups, there are a couple of words that we typically use when we're talking about them, like you, you mentioned one earlier. You said your PNG, and then another one would be like a movable piece that I hear a lot, can you?
Speaker 2:
talk about what those two things are Sure.
Speaker 2:
So when I say mock-up, I think of just a of like a background piece, so that all the seller has to do is, if they have a digital product and they're doing boom cards, let's just say so.
Speaker 2:
Their end user students are playing these on an iPad, so they want to show them on an iPad. So a mock-up could be for a holiday resource, a Halloween background with an iPad on there that is completely squared up so that it's not at a tilt and it's not at an angle. So things get kind of weird and morphe that then they can shoot a video on their own iPad. As long as you're on an iPad it's the same aspect ratio of the screen. So they could basically screen record on their iPad the boom card in use, record that and then drop that recording onto the screen of the background and mock-up. That's already done and there they are displaying and then they add their title or whatever branding text they want to do, and that makes it easier for them to show their product in use. But they don't have to set up the whole thing and put the iPad down and get that angle, which is not easy. So same thing for a print resource.
Speaker 2:
You know, you want it to look creative and not just a piece of paper on the table. So maybe you want to put it on a clipboard, maybe you want to put it where on a bulletin board, something, but the teacher seller doesn't want to be the one that has to shoot all of that. Yeah, so that's how I use mock-ups. So when I say PNG, I meant like if you've created a product, let's say in PowerPoint, you can export it as a PDF, you can export it as whatever. But you would take that eight and a half by 11 exported page and drop it into the mock-up.
Speaker 1:
Almost like the picture of your product taking like a digital picture of your product and laying it on top of the mock-up to look like it's your page. That's on the desk, yeah, and then with movable pieces.
Speaker 2:
Oh, and then you asked about movable pieces. Yeah, so the movable pieces I sell separately. To me, a movable piece is a photo that has the background removed. To me, a movable pieces is a photo that has the background removed, so that if you wanted to zhuzh up your image with some kind of pieces that relate to what you're using, so let's say, it's a printed product and it's a task card, right? So you've already dropped your screenshot of a task card into the mock-up of the task card box, but you are a kindergarten teacher and you use those little colored bears for this particular activity.
Speaker 2:
That's a manipulative you might use. If you have movable pieces that you have access to of those little bears, you can then layer those on top of the image and then, when this kindergarten teacher is searching for things, it triggers in her mind oh, I already have those in my classroom. I want to buy this because I don't have. You know, I have all this stuff, I just need those cards. So to me, the movable pieces are the accents that you can use to make it personalized for your product, right?
Speaker 1:
Or even to make it look a little bit more realistic, because I've seen people, you know, take a little hand as a movable piece and put it with the iPad, or may act like it's the one drawing whatever it is that's pre-written in, or taking the pen and laying it on top of the paper instead of just having everything to the side. So so many options with these mock-ups. When it comes to time and a time commitment, I mean, I know everybody's going to be different, like when I was trying to shoot my own product photography way back in the day before, I realized I had zero natural talent for that and it was not going to work. It would take me hours, hours, to print, stage photograph these very out of focus, extremely yellow pictures, you know. So when we're talking about the difference between getting, like, say, a high quality photograph of your product versus creating a realistic looking mock-up, what are we talking about here? Time difference wise, what's the time commitment Like?
Speaker 2:
well, I think there is some technique involved, like you kind of have to get the basics down of some technique to make it look professional. You know, and I just feel like you know, there are lots of options in product photography. There are some fabulous sellers that sell courses on how to do your own cell phones, are amazing at what they can do now that they couldn't do before, and so there's all kinds of options. But when I talk to people and the feedback that I get in in Facebook groups, in my own group, is that time, commitment of and and the perfectionism that so many of us have that editing like they're editing it and they're like, oh, it looks good, but I'm not sure, so I'm going to put it away and then I'm going to come back and I'm not sure. That whole thing where. Just get the product in your store, right.
Speaker 2:
And so so many sellers that I've talked to tell me I have products completed, I just haven't put them in my store because I haven't done the cover or I haven't done the thumbnails or the preview, or I haven't done the thumbnails or the preview, and it breaks my heart because I just think the students need your product. So let's just make it easier and I think it's just a matter of you know. We can create some templates that you can use, like personalize your own templates that you can create, if you have all the tools to do that, and then it's just dragging and dropping. Once you get used to doing it, there is a little bit of a learning curve at the beginning Absolutely.
Speaker 1:
I love that because you know, for me, as a mom with two littles, the idea of even just getting out and setting up all the photography equipment because there's no, there's no place in my house where it's safe to be set up all the time right, even just the thought of getting all that out, setting it up, and then, of course, as soon as you get everything into place, the baby's going to wake up, the toddler's going to need you to wipe their butt, right, like something's going to happen, and my demographic is mostly mom. Exactly by the time you get everything set up, it's time to put it away or you've got to stop, you've got to go cook dinner, you've got to prioritize something else, and so being able to just have a few hours to shoot photographs is not something that everyone can do, and so for me, I was the same way. I was outsourcing my photography, which of course, costs money, and my photographer was fantastic. She did a wonderful job, but it was always I needed to do it in batches. So it was like, okay, I'm going to get 10 products and take them to her, so I've got to wait till 10 products are done to give them to her, and then I've going to get 10 products and take them to her. So I've got to wait till 10 products are done to give them to her and then I've got to wait for them to get back.
Speaker 1:
And it's always a time thing where it's so nice to just be able to pull that mock-up out and just say you know what, it might be 1030 at night, but I've got 10, 15 minutes. I can put this together. You know I can do it right now. So I love it changer for me, even though I don't utilize it as much as I ought to, I really love mock-ups. So can we talk about a couple of things? Because I'm assuming you hear these questions a lot, but there are the same questions that I get a lot. And the first is like, how do you take because there are a lot of photographers like you who sell background images, mock-up images and things like that all over TPT on Etsy and a lot of sellers are buying from the same people, like they're buying a lot of the same ones from the same people how do you take your image and make it unique for your cover? Like, how do you make your cover look unique when so many of these mock-ups, even across different photographers, look alike?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I do get this question a lot of you know. I understand that mock-ups are easy to use, but I see people using the same ones all the time and it's kind of like you know, if you've been with TPT for a while as a seller, you went through the whole Chevron stage, you know, and then there were several years where everything was shiplap and you know there are just trends. It's just like trends in any design your home design, clothing, anything and so people find something that they really like and then they get good at it. And there are, like you said, there are some very good market photographers on TPT. So I get asked a lot.
Speaker 2:
Well, I don't want to use the same ones that everybody else uses, because then when I type in my keyword and I and all of those images pop up like seven of them are from different people but they look the same. So that's where those movable pieces can come in. That's where branding and setting up some of your templates that fit with your brand colors and all of that and with your product that you're selling, you know, a different product line. I am not one who thinks that everything in the store should look exactly the same when you go to someone's store, I think it should look recognizable, but it's kind of the same thing, everything looks the same and what's going to stand out.
Speaker 2:
So maybe you have a look for a product line so that when people really love your product line, they know what to look for, and those movable pieces can really help with that. Because if you have the right tools, if you have a toolkit is what I call it with all of the options that you can do, and you've learned the technique of how to layer on those movable pieces, like you talked about with the hands Maybe it's a child's hand that's writing, maybe, maybe it's a child's hand that's writing, maybe it's a child's hand that's holding a globe for Earth Day, all of that. But you need to have access and you can't find those in camp. You might be able to find some now, but in terms of specific to educators, they're hard to find. So if you have the toolkit and there are movable pieces that are sold on TPT that you can access, and then there I have them in my membership too.
Speaker 1:
But that's kind of how I teach my how to make things look more like you, like what your brand is, absolutely, absolutely, because I know there are people we mentioned a particular photographer before we were talking, or I mentioned a particular photographer before we started recording that I recognize her work from like anywhere, like I can, I can spot her work. I know that that's her mock-up, but the products don't look the same, because not only is the resource different it's a different resource but the fonts are different, the branding is different, the colors are different. All of that is still different.
Speaker 1:
And I love what you're saying about utilizing those movable pieces, because not everybody's going to have a child's hand with a pencil or not everybody is going to have maybe some set of dice or a calculator or something like that sitting on the desk, and so even just kind of making those small tweaks and changes can make a big difference too. So I love that you mentioned that there are sellers who sell movable pieces, who sell mock-ups on TPT. What is it that we're supposed to look for when we're purchasing a mock-up? Because I know I've purchased a bad set of mock-ups that I couldn't use, you know, and they looked great when I was purchasing them, but then I go to use them like, oh, that's not gonna work.
Speaker 2:
For me. I think you need to look for a couple of things. One of them is the consistency of the lighting is critical because if you purchase one set of mock-ups that you know is like you said, might have a little bit of a yellow tint that you don't really see if that's just the one set you're using, but then if you're confusing and then adding in a mock-up from a different photographer and theirs has a little bit of a blue tint when you put them together, you really can see it in your products. So it's important to have that consistency that is well lit. And it's interesting when I my movable pieces that I sell, especially the hands and some. I think I have some holiday movable pieces in my store and the feedback that I get in the comments frequently is these are so crisp and clear, which tells me there are some others that are not, and you know that that's what they're seeing as.
Speaker 2:
The difference and for me I don't know, a part of that is I just have a photography background and I'm using a professional camera versus using an iPhone, because when you think about it, the lens on an iPhone is about a quarter of an inch big on the back of your phone right. That's how light gets in to your lens to be able to light your image. I'm using a lens that is a professional lens, that's huge I mean it's like this big and so the light that my ability to edit that and not lose any of the detail is greater just because of the equipment that I use. So I'm not saying that an iPhone is bad, but if you start buying from multiple different sellers and want to start using those images together, those mock-ups together, you will see a difference in the lighting. Then you're sitting there going do I have to edit that? Go in and tweak these, and it's not easy to do. So that's something that I really consider is the lighting, how well it's lit. And then the other thing for me I'm a minimalist, so I'm the person who likes.
Speaker 2:
If I was going to get a magazine to take on an airplane, I would get real simple. I just like how it's laid out. I like there's lots of open space and some photographer styles are very different, so they want a lot of props on the image. Professionally-wise, and just when you look at a photograph, your eye reads it, similar to reading a book, reading a story. You usually start, goes left. Your eye goes left or right. You don't know you're doing this, but that's what's happening, and if your eye is really distracted by a lot of different things in the image, it's losing the effect of what you're there for, which is to sell your product. You want it to be the star. So my two things are lighting consistency across sets that are sold by a photographer, and also just you know how much open space is there for you to add your branding elements, for you to add your text on there. So those are the two main things that I think you should look for.
Speaker 1:
I love that and I think for anybody who's new out there, and particularly if you're a brand new seller and you're trying not to spend a lot of money, one thing that Kelly's saying that I'm kind of hearing is probably don't try downloading and utilizing all the free mock-ups from all the different sellers, because I do see people doing that. It's like, oh, grab a free one from this store and a free one from that store. Maybe use that as a way to gauge whether or not you feel like their work is user friendly, whether or not it works well with your product, and maybe use a free mock-up from a seller's store, but keeping in mind that you're going to want that consistency for other resources down the road, and so make sure that somebody you actually want to purchase from as well, and instead of just a freebie here and a freebie there and trying to mix them together and make it work. Of course, I've done that too, so it's not going to be the end of the world if that's all you get Right.
Speaker 2:
I think that's what everybody does when they're learning. Right Is that you know you're trying to figure it out. But if you're down the road looking at your store and thinking why doesn't this look cohesive? That could be part of the element is the lighting in your images. Or if you add a movable piece that was rightly lit in shooting and you add it to a photo that's kind of dark, it's going to look funny. It doesn't look real. The nuances of the editing of those images don't match. I love that.
Speaker 1:
So, kelly, you're going to be at Teacher Seller Summit. You're going to be talking about creating previews like profitable previews, and I'm so excited for that. Can you tell us a little bit about your TSS session and what we can expect to learn from that?
Speaker 2:
Yes, I'm super excited about this. One of the things consistently that I've seen and I've done some polls on Instagram is you know what is your least favorite thing to do when you are either creating all of the pieces that goes in uploading a product, or you're optimizing and buy a long shot? Previews came up, as I hate previews. I love I start when I make a product. I start with my preview and then I tear that apart to make the other pieces, so it's just an interesting way of looking at it. I'm like, okay, I'll talk about this because this is one of my favorite things to do when I create a product, so I'm going to be talking about previews that perform. My session is. I call it a make and take, like what we used to do in schools, and so I'm kind of teaching how to use elements, and then attached to the presentation will be a file that has some photo elements, some movable pieces and some graphics so that you can play.
Speaker 2:
You can learn how to do it and you can play with them, so that you can kind of see oh, is this something that I can do? And I just find, from my perspective, like when you talked about free products, it's great to get something free, but if you don't know how to use it, you're never going to use it. I like to teach, where I show how to do something and then I give you some examples so you can try it, and then I'm also including a list of things to include in your preview, or things to consider including in your preview, depending on what kind of a product it is. So it's kind of like a checklist with some spaces where you could add your own things, but just things to consider that you would do differently maybe from your thumbnails. So I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 2:
It's a fun thing to teach and I went to the summit last year. It was fantastic. I'm still watching some of the ones from last year because I bought the pass and so it's like you know, I could see and I found a lot of new people to follow from that summit. So it was yeah, I'm really excited about it.
Speaker 1:
I love it. Well, I'm so excited that you're going to be there and super excited for your session. Can you tell everyone in the meantime where they can find you and learn more from you, and also tell us a little bit about your membership too?
Speaker 2:
Sure. So you can find me on Instagram at speakingofimages, and every Friday I do what's called free photo Friday, so I do two images that you can screenshot that a lot of people will use for their Instagram. So it's kind of just makes it easy. If you want to do a poll, if you want to do a question, I give you a couple images you can screenshot and use right away or save whatever you want to do with them. I also have a free Facebook group that's called mock-up mastery for TPT sellers, and the point of that is kind of similar to this make and take that we'll do at the summit is I pick a topic based on what people have told me generally from the membership and we learn how to do a new technique and then you can have access to some images to try that out. So I've been doing that for a few years.
Speaker 2:
I took a big hiatus in 2023 because I hit a burnout big time trying to work on a membership, trying to work on TPT, working still in the schools, and I just had to let something go. But I'm back at it now and I love to teach, so it's super fun. And then the membership is called the Image Maker Membership and it is basically giving access to this photo gallery that currently has about 12,000 images in it and it's everything from mock-ups for tech, those hands that we talked about. I hire student models that I pay. The student models and their parents sign a commercial license release for me to be able to use those images and sell those images.
Speaker 2:
And I am a very strong believer in being very careful about where you find your images, particularly of children. And you know when I've had people ask me, but it's just their hand, it's the back of their head. And I think if you're a mom and you see 30 backs of heads, would you be able to recognize the back of your kid's head, and I've never had a mom say no. So that mom should know that their child's image is being used for a commercial purpose. So that's just something I feel strongly about. I'll get off my soapbox, but so there's pictures of kids, there's images, there's thousands and thousands of movable pieces, and it's driven by what the members request. So I get requests all the time for photo shoots and that's what I shoot. So that's what the Image Maker membership is.
Speaker 1:
And, yeah, my Facebook group, instagram and the membership, and we'll put links to all of that down inside of the description. Thank you so much for being here, kelly, and we can't wait to see you at Teacher Seller Summit, and I'm sure a lot of folks are going to be connecting with you in the meantime. Thanks so much for being here and for sharing your expertise and knowledge with us today.
Speaker 2:
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:
Thanks so much for being here. You guys, Be sure to check out the other podcast episodes with many of the other TSS guests. If you haven't grabbed your ticket to Teacher Seller Summit yet, make sure to go ahead and do that. You can find a link to that inside of the show notes and I'm going to see you guys right back here next week.