- There is a photograph waiting to be captured everywhere; you just have to see it.
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The Brief
The Bowl Chair Co. found me online. A cold enquiry, no referral, no prior connection, just someone who liked my work and happened to be local to Worcestershire. That’s always a good sign. It tells you the images you put out there are doing their job.
The brief itself was focused and clear: studio product photography on transparent backgrounds, ready to drop straight into website designs, mockups, and print. The chairs were being launched in three colourways, and the client needed images that showed each one from multiple angles, not just flattering hero shots, but detailed images that let potential customers see the craftsmanship up close. Every stitch, every curve, every considered design decision needed to be visible.
In addition to the core cutout photography, I also produced an AI-generated room mockup using Google Gemini, placing one of the chairs into a room environment so the client (and their future customers) could visualise it in context. This isn’t something I typically offer as a formal service, I’m a photographer, not a graphic designer, but I find it’s a powerful way to show what’s possible. It opens a conversation about lifestyle shoots, gives the client a feel for how the images can work in the real world, and occasionally plants a seed for the next project.
The Shoot
The shoot took place at my studio in Kidderminster, well-equipped, fully controlled, and set up to handle exactly this kind of work.
The main challenge with the bowl chair was the bowl itself. It’s a half-sphere, and it’s highly reflective, which means it picks up everything in the room. Lights, walls, floor, ceiling, me. If you don’t manage that carefully, you end up with a product image that looks like a mirror rather than a chair.
Reflections are something I’m known for getting right, and I tend to approach them as a creative opportunity rather than a technical problem. The key here was understanding the angles of incidence, specifically, what was reflecting up from the floor into the bowl, and how to use that to my advantage. Rather than trying to eliminate the reflections, I worked with them, positioning the lighting so the bowl picked up a beautiful, clean gradient. The result is an image where the reflective surface becomes part of what makes the product look premium.
It took about ten minutes to nail. That’s not me being dismissive of the challenge; it’s the result of years of experience reading a product the moment it arrives in the studio. I look at a product, and I’m already working out what I’ve got to do before a light is moved. That instinct is hard to teach, but it’s what separates a product shot that’s technically correct from one that makes someone want to buy the thing.
Once the lighting was locked in, we worked through all three colourways, multiple positions, and a series of detail shots that got up close to the craftsmanship, the kind of images that reward a customer who zooms in on a product page.
The Results
We delivered 27 final images in total:
– 21 transparent cutout images, clean, polished, ready for web, print, and design mockups across all three colourways and angles
– 6 detail shots, no background, pure product, showing the quality of the materials and construction up close
Before anything was signed off, the client received a proof gallery, a process we use on every job. The client had already seen the images developing throughout the shoot, but the finished, retouched versions always look different. The proof gallery is their opportunity to review everything and flag anything before final delivery. It’s a step that matters, and one that consistently leads to clients feeling fully confident in what they’re getting.
The feedback from The Bowl Chair Co. was exactly what you want to hear, they loved the images. A business still finding its feet, preparing a product launch that carries real personal meaning, now has photography that does justice to the story behind the product.
Working With a Product Photographer in the West Midlands
If you’re a product-based business in Birmingham, Worcestershire, or the wider West Midlands and you need photography that makes your product impossible to ignore, I’d love to hear from you.
My studio is based in Kidderminster, just 30 minutes from Birmingham city centre, which means I’m ideally placed to work with businesses across the region without the cost and hassle of travelling to a major city. Whether you’re launching a new product line, refreshing your e-commerce images, or, like The Bowl Chair Co., bringing something genuinely special to market, the process is the same: I look for the beauty in what you’ve made, and I make sure your customer can see it too.
Furniture, homeware, lifestyle products, industrial components, if it’s worth selling, it’s worth photographing properly.
Get in touch to discuss your project → Discuss your project
Recent Portfolios
Product Photography Case Study: Black Pear Bespoke, with a Twist of AI
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Product Photography Case Study: The Bowl Chair Co.
