Creating a Shot List for Commercial Lifestyle and Product Photography

One of the best ways to make sure that you have a successful photoshoot in any niche is to properly prepare with a consistent pre-production pipeline. Speaking specifically about commercial lifestyle photography where you’re advertising a product or brand, you might have to coordinate a lot of steps before photoshoot day.

A shot list is a useful tool to make sure that the photoshoot goes smoothly on production day. It’ll be important regardless of what kind of photoshoot you’re producing, but when you’re taking your product away from the typical e-commerce white backdrop and out on location, a detailed shot list is that much more important.

In this blog post, I’ll be talking about tips on how to prepare a necessary shot list for commercial lifestyle and product photography.

What Is A Shot List

At the risk of sounding redundant, a shot list is a list of shots that the photographer refers to during the photoshoot. A shot list can help everyone on set stay organized and get all of the necessary photos that the client agrees upon before production day.

A shot list provides a way to successfully organize the thoughts and ideas taken from a mood board and explain the specifics of how to capture a product. I’ll touch on this point further, but usually the more detailed your shot list, the more prepared you’ll be for the actual shoot - especially when you’re shooting outdoors and working with models.

Custom Mood Boards

A mood board is an important step to take before creating the shot list. For me, I work with a client to create a mood board board after gauging their likes for the product lifestyle photoshoot. We talk about aspects of the photoshoot like target demographic, location ideas, brand aesthetic, how and where the photos will be used, and more.

All of these aspects are important in the mood board, and inevitably in the shot list that will come out of that.

What’s Included In A Shot List

Once you decide the style and aesthetic of the commercial photoshoot, you’ll want to break down the specifics in order to create a shot list. Your shot list will vary depending on the product and brand aesthetic you’re shooting, as well as the designated location of the photoshoot. But here are some things to keep in mind and possibly include in your shot list:

Photo Orientation: Is the photo you’re taking in portrait or landscape orientation? This refers back to the point of how and where the photo will be used. If you’re shooting a hero shot for a website banner, then you might want to go with a landscape orientation that stretches across the screen. If the photo is for a social media platform like Instagram, then you might want to shoot it vertically. I personally try to get both a wide variety of orientations so the client has many to choose from.

Location: This will be especially useful if you’re going to be taking photos of the product in different locations, but is still useful to include regardless. One outdoor location might have different sections that you can explore.

For example, Downtown Los Angeles offers a variety of backdrops within walking distance of each other, like the Walt Disney Concert Hall, metro stations, small gardens, etc. 

Product Features: Showing off the specific features of the product is essential for any kind of commercial brand campaign. 

For example, if you’re shooting a backpack with a laptop compartment, then you can include a shot of a model putting their laptop in the compartment, rather than just showing what it looks like. If the backpack has a USB cable, then showcase its use out in the field with something like a phone charger plugged into the USB cable. 

Essentially with lifestyle photoshoots, you want to show the features in action and not just what they look like.

Final Thoughts

Shot lists can sometimes be a time-consuming process in the pre-production stage, but having a prepared plan that the photographer and client agrees upon is a tool for communication for all parties so that the advertising campaign is as structured as possible.

While a shot list is a useful organization tool, it’s important to not be too dependent on it and still be open to new ideas that happen in the photoshoot. Once you get all of the photos you know you need, you should still allow for some flexibility as new ideas can come up on set.

For my commercial photoshoots, I create a shot list as part of my pre-production pipeline so that we get all of the shots that we need. If you’d like to learn more about my process with clients, you can click here.

Thanks for reading and until next time.

Feel free to explore my website further with outdoor lifestyle photoshoot posts below:

Outdoor Lifestyle Product Photography for Watch Brands

Luxury Watch Outdoor Lifestyle Photoshoot at Venice Beach, Los Angeles

Sunset City Lifestyle Photoshoot in Downtown Los Angeles

Creative Commercial Beach Campaign Photography in Santa Monica