Can an iPhone really take your product photography to the next level? Join us as we sit down with Rakel Johnson, a former K-2 teacher turned product photography maestro, who reveals her secrets for capturing stunning educational resource images. From achieving perfect lighting to understanding buyer behavior across platforms like Teachers Pay Teachers (TPT), Instagram, and blogs, Rakel's insights are invaluable. She shares practical tips for using just your iPhone, ensuring consistent lighting, and repurposing images to maximize engagement and sales.
This episode is packed with actionable takeaways for TPT sellers looking to enhance their product photos. Rakel breaks down essential tools like ring lights, softboxes, and editing apps like Snapseed, and emphasizes the importance of planning for consistent photo sessions. Learn how to breathe new life into your social media and blog posts with Canva and other creative tools. Plus, get a sneak peek into the Teacher Seller Summit where you can get hands-on experience with these techniques. Stay tuned to the end for details on how to follow Rakel on Instagram and enroll in her course, Product Photo Genius, for more expert advice.
Can an iPhone really take your product photography to the next level? Join us as we sit down with Rakel Johnson, a former K-2 teacher turned product photography maestro, who reveals her secrets for capturing stunning educational resource images. From achieving perfect lighting to understanding buyer behavior across platforms like Teachers Pay Teachers (TPT), Instagram, and blogs, Rakel's insights are invaluable. She shares practical tips for using just your iPhone, ensuring consistent lighting, and repurposing images to maximize engagement and sales.
This episode is packed with actionable takeaways for TPT sellers looking to enhance their product photos. Rakel breaks down essential tools like ring lights, softboxes, and editing apps like Snapseed, and emphasizes the importance of planning for consistent photo sessions. Learn how to breathe new life into your social media and blog posts with Canva and other creative tools. Plus, get a sneak peek into the Teacher Seller Summit where you can get hands-on experience with these techniques. Stay tuned to the end for details on how to follow Rakel on Instagram and enroll in her course, Product Photo Genius, for more expert advice.
Today I have a special guest, raquel Johnson, who is talking all about product photography, how to take excellent photos of your resources on your own, how to plan your lighting, and she's also talking about how to factor in buyer mindset and how that plays a role in the type of photography that you're going to want to use on, say, your blog, tpt, etc. She's going to share a few tips and tricks that you can use with your iPhone that I have used since our conversation with her and it is really served me well, not only in my TPT business, but I've been able to use this tip when taking photos and videos in different places of my house. That has really helped make the lighting more consistent. I'm super, super excited for you guys to meet Raquel. Hey, raquel, welcome back. How are you? I'm so good. Thanks, lauren, for having me back.
Speaker 2:
How are you? I'm so good. Thanks, Lauren, for having me back. How are you doing? I'm?
Speaker 1:
great. I'm so excited that you're here because we're gonna be talking about product photography and I told you before we got started that I've got some pretty selfish questions today, so I'm really excited to chat with you. Can you first start by just telling everyone a little bit about you, who you are, what you do and how you work in the teacher entrepreneur space?
Speaker 2:
Absolutely, and I'm super excited for you. Starting a pre-K store, that's an exciting adventure. So I was a teacher a K through two teacher for 10 years and I was teaching second grade when my second little one was born and I decided I wanted just a bit more flexibility, to be at home, to be able to be around my kiddos more, and so in my 10th year of teaching it was 2021, I decided to start a business and I am not a professional photographer in a previous life Love taking tons of photos of my kids and pets but I decided I was going to learn product photography and so I did in 2021. And that's kind of how I fell into this.
Speaker 2:
I've been taking product photos and videos for teacher authors since then and then, about like a year and a half ago, I pivoted my business a little bit. So I still do product photography and videography, but now I love working with teacher authors and helping them learn how to take product photos for their own business, because there's so many people that it's not in the budget to continuously hire out for product photos, and even if they're still kind of hiring out, a lot of people want that skill to be able to take photos quickly or be able to get a product out there when they need to. So that is where my focus has been, and I have a course, I work one-on-one with teacher authors, and so that's kind of where my business has taken me, and I love being able to work with teacherpreneurs. I love the TPT space. It's just. It's such a fun place to be.
Speaker 1:
I love it. Well, we're so glad that you're helping other teacher authors learn how to take their own product photos, because it is it's something else. It's either a hefty investment to pay somebody else to do your product photography. Plus, you have to really be mindful of, like what you said before, like you just want to be able to post something right away. You have to really think several steps in advance because it lengthens that process or the amount of time that it's going to take to be able to get that resource put on.
Speaker 1:
Teachers Pay Teachers, so if you're in the earlier stages of your store, then it's kind of difficult to hire that out. So I love that you're helping some of us do our own photography. So let's talk about this a little bit because I tell you, one of the things that I'm really struggling with right now entering this pre-K space, is I want to make sure that I'm taking pictures for all the places. May not be that necessarily I want to do, say, instagram or TikTok right now, but I want to have the ability to do that and not have to go back and reshoot products or things like that later on. So when we're talking about putting things out on different platforms. What are some things that we need to be mindful of in terms of, maybe, the size of the photo that we're shooting. If we're shooting it in an iPhone, like, do we need to be taking square like 9?
Speaker 2:
by 16?. You know I talk a lot about repurposing images because number one they're one of. If you have, if you're spending the investment, time or money to take photos or hire them out, you want to use them in as many places as you can, and it's absolutely important to think about the different platforms and how your product photos are going to work best on those platforms. And so there's so much information about utilizing them in different places. But I think the very first place to start is really understanding the buyer mindset, and when you understand the buyer mindset, that's going to help you utilize your product photos better in all the places. And so you don't necessarily have to be in every place. You don't necessarily have to be marketing on TikTok, on Pinterest, on Instagram, on a blog, but many TPT sellers are utilizing at least a few of those different marketing platforms. And so really thinking about the marketing platform that you're using and why your buyers are there.
Speaker 2:
Because on TPT, your product photos if you have a clear photo that shows your product, shows how it's in use, that's going to be optimized for TPT. Because your buyers are there, because they're ready to buy, they're primed to buy. But if you think about Instagram, for example, people are scrolling Instagram, not necessarily because they're looking to buy something, but they're looking to be engaged, they want to connect, they want to be entertained, and so if you're just posting your product photos or your product covers and saying, hey, look at this awesome literacy resource, buy it now. That's not necessarily going to be the most effective way to utilize your photos. And then same with a blog. If you think about posting on your blog, your buyers are there, or the people that are reading your blog are there because they want to learn something, they're looking to gain a valuable skill, and so there's definitely different things you can think about when you're capturing your images.
Speaker 1:
So consistency in lighting when you're shooting in multiple different places. Is this just as simple as, like getting a ring light and putting it in different spots in your house and moving it around, or is there more to it than that? Or do we need to just like, have one consistent place where we always shoot our photography and videography? Like? What's the solution to this?
Speaker 2:
Absolutely Great question and I get this question. Lighting is the trickiest part about product photography and I absolutely hear you. You don't think you don't want to spend $500 for lighting to take product photos. You want it to be as cost-effective as possible. I'm going to have a couple different answers here, based on what you're looking to do. So I hear you saying that you love which is amazing that you're taking photos of your toddler, like completing these resources and working with your resources, which is amazing because that is going to be so effective at selling your resource and showing what it looks like with kiddos using it.
Speaker 2:
And that piece gets a little bit trickier because you're not wanting to be intrusive and manipulate her and you just want to let them go when you're taking photos like that.
Speaker 2:
number one you absolutely could have just a space set up in your home.
Speaker 2:
So if you have a place where you do product photography and I have, like, my piece of foam board on just a table in my workspace and you could absolutely, if you want, depending on what kind of background you want so thinking about if you want that like light wooden background, like she's working on a desk, or the white background, you could have her go and work at your photography workstation if she would be all right with that, and then that would give you a little bit more control over the lighting.
Speaker 2:
And so, typically, some things that I suggest for consistency in lighting that are very cheap. Number one if you're looking to get brighter photos and I think we maybe talked about this last time too my favorite favorite tip is manually increasing the exposure on your phone before you take a shot, and so you're actually able to, rather than like overexposing it afterwards in editing. If you're on an iPhone, you just like pull up and you'll find your little settings. That looks like a little plus and minus, and you can just drag the slider and increase your exposure to make it a bit brighter and make your lighting kind of more consistent.
Speaker 2:
So if you're working in like a darker place, you might manually increase that exposure a bit more than if you were taking it in like a darker place like her bedroom or not by a window, and then, if you like, have a photography workspace set up, which would be the most consistent lighting. Another tip is creating which we maybe talked about this last time too creating a DIY light box. Basically, what I do is I just get foam boards. I use them from the Dollar Tree, so it's like $3.75 for a light box and I just have three foam boards and I tape them together at the corners and then it's pretty big, so it could absolutely just like fit on the table.
Speaker 2:
I know that people are listening and I'm like showing how it goes, but you would set it down and it's almost like there's three walls. So the front part would be open for her to be like writing on a resource or solving a puzzle or putting things together, and that front part would be open for her to work on the table. But what that would do is it would just like make the light that you do have if you're using like a ring light or something like that. It would keep that light within the box, because the light kind of bounces off the walls, and would make that whole setting just a bit brighter.
Speaker 1:
I love that and that's kind of for those who are trying to picture it. You're talking about something similar to like what you would put on a student desk to keep them from like cheating or getting distracted.
Speaker 2:
Why have I never thought of that before? I'm going to start using that visual because that actually is a really great way to explain it.
Speaker 2:
And that's going to help. If you do like, for example, decide to use a ring light, that will help it be a lot brighter. If you're not wanting to kind of have that staged look and you're really wanting to take photos around your house in different places, manually increasing the exposure will help, but also a lot of that. The lighting piece then will come in editing to make your photos look consistent, and I know that can be the trickier part. One app that I suggest that a lot of TPT authors end up using, because it's free and it's very powerful, is Snapseed, and it has a lot of tools that you're able to increase the brightness of certain tones in your photos, like the whites in your photos, without affecting the other colors in your image.
Speaker 1:
Okay, that's really helpful. So I'm going to check out Snapseed. I've traditionally used Lightroom, but I'm not like a professional at Lightroom, so I'll check out Snapseed for sure. I also have like a studio light, but do you think like a ring light would probably be more appropriate than like, say, a studio light? But do you think like a ring light would probably be more appropriate?
Speaker 2:
than like say, a studio light. You know, honestly, if you have a studio light, so do you have like a soft box on your studio?
Speaker 1:
light.
Speaker 2:
Really either, or will work if you're actually shooting like a person and you're getting your child in in the photos.
Speaker 2:
The softbox lighting will probably work a little bit better because it softens that light and when there's like a whole human in the photo, that often there's just like a bigger object that creates more shadows, and so the softbox will just soften it a bit so those shadows aren't as harsh. If you're just taking photos of a resource without your child in the photos, then I would suggest kind of having that consistent place, and either light really would work. But that's where, like using a light box is going to help kind of contain that light and make it brighter.
Speaker 1:
I love that.
Speaker 1:
I love that You're going to teach us how to take, you know, existing product photos that you already have and make them work at other places. But if you can plan ahead that way, it saves you a lot of time. You don't have to go back and try to take other pictures, which I'm finding that if I know what, for example, which pages I'm going to feature on the blog, then I can just go ahead and have her do those work pages first in the workbook, take those pictures all in one sitting and then that way she's not say at the kitchen table for one and then at our desk for another. So like planning ahead. But then also you've given us some excellent tips for kind of making the lighting a little bit more consistent and some doing some things to help if you're taking pictures in stages or in multiple places. And then one other question that I wanted to ask you is what are we going to learn at Teacher Seller Summit to help us take super consistent photos and get us all up and running with our own product photography?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, absolutely. I am so excited for TSS number one. I can't wait and we are going to be really digging into taking your photos. So, however you have your photos and utilizing them on social media, on a blog, and we're going to be showing it in action. So we're going to be in Canva actually manipulating some Instagram templates. We're going to be showing it in action. So we're going to be in Canva actually manipulating some Instagram templates.
Speaker 2:
We're going to be, you know, writing a caption together, because another strategy we didn't talk about here is if you're going to be just posting a product photo, really pairing it with a caption that you know captures your audience. That is going to connect, tell a story, and so we're going to be writing a caption together. We're going to be talking about, like, actually showing examples of what photos might look like in your blog or how to take sequential photos. So we're going to be just taking what we talked about today and really putting it in action and showing you specific things like how to you know how to use a transparent overlay in Canva, how to use a gradient to actually take a photo and fit it on a real template if it isn't a nine to 16, how to use a gradient to soften that edge of the photo, things like that that are really easy to do but will make repurposing a lot easier.
Speaker 1:
That's awesome, I'm so excited for your session. Where can listeners connect with you in the meantime to learn more? Learn more about your course and learn more from you?
Speaker 2:
I would say that the place I show up the most is Instagram. I'm at Raquel Johnson Simply Creating, and I'm constantly sharing tips, helpful advice for photos on there, and my course is called Product Photo Genius. You can find the link in my Instagram bio or you know, I love connecting with new people.
Speaker 2:
That has been one of my favorite things of this whole journey is just meeting other teachers that are passionate about creating amazing things to share with students and teachers. So DM me. I love making new friends and would love to just connect, chat, answer questions, so that's where you can find me Love it.
Speaker 1:
Thank you, raquel, for being here. Can't wait to see you at TSS and always love having you on the podcast, so thanks so much for being here.
Speaker 2:
Thank you so much for having me today, Lauren. I loved being here with you and love chatting. All things repurposing and product photography. Thanks so much for being here.
Speaker 1:
You guys, if you want to join us for Teacher Seller Summit, it's literally right around the corner. That starts in just a couple of weeks, on June 27th, and you absolutely do not want to miss this. We're talking about 40 different presentations with tons of guest experts who are going to help you grow and expand your teacher entrepreneur business, both on and off TPT. We're going to have live panels where you can come and ask questions from different experts. We're going to have opportunities multiple opportunities for you to meet and connect with other TPT sellers, maybe even in your area. I cannot wait for TSS. You absolutely do not want to miss this. You can grab your ticket through the link down in the description. I cannot wait to see you guys there, for right now, I'm going to see you guys right back here next week.
