Commercial & Advertising Photography in Belgium

The value of packshot work is never in one image. It is in thirty that match — same distance, same angle, same white, same shadow. A catalogue where the product changes size between rows reads as amateur even when every individual file is technically correct, and the customer registers it without being able to name it. The framing template is built once at the start and applied to the entire set, which is why consistency can be promised in advance rather than hoped for at delivery. Marketplace specifications are the second half of the job and the half most often skipped. Every platform sets its own rules on background, margins, file weight and what proportion of the frame the product must fill. Files that miss them are rejected, and the rejection tends to arrive after the listing deadline, when there is no time to reshoot. Those requirements are checked against the target platform before anything is delivered. On artificial intelligence, the honest position rather than the defensive one: for simple objects on a white background, generated imagery is increasingly capable, and no price will hold that line. Two things still require a camera. Generation needs a real photograph of your actual product to start from, and it fails visibly on reflective and transparent surfaces — which is why jewellery, glass and polished metal are quoted separately. If you already have images from an in-house shoot or a supplier, they can be brought to a single standard rather than reshot — see retouching. Clothing on a body or an invisible mannequin is a different setup and lives on the catalogue e-commerce page.

Every other category on this page now competes with generated imagery. Food does not, and the reason is worth stating plainly: a guest choosing a restaurant is looking for evidence that this dish, in this room, actually looks like this. A generated plate is a promise the kitchen never made, and the gap between the promise and the plate arrives at the table where it does the most damage. That is why the dishes are photographed in your restaurant rather than carried to a studio. The room, the tableware and the light of the place become part of the image, which is exactly what makes it recognisable when the guest walks in. A dish shot on a seamless white background could belong to any establishment in the city — that is a supplier's photograph, not yours. Sessions are normally scheduled between services, so nothing closes and the kitchen can plate without a rush behind it. Your chef plates, because the dishes photographed have to be the dishes served. My part is the light and the sequence; the food is not styled into something the customer will not receive. Coverage extends beyond the plates when it is useful: the room, the team, the façade. A seasonal arrangement covering the new dishes each quarter is the version that keeps a menu current without a full reshoot every time the card changes.

A matte object needs light put on it. A reflective object reflects everything around it, including the camera and the person holding it, and the only way to control that is to build what it reflects. That is the entire difference between this and a packshot, and it is a difference in method rather than in effort or ambition. The industry norm is roughly an hour of lighting and two to three hours of finishing per piece — charging packshot rates for that means either doing it badly or doing it at a loss, and both show. This is also the one product category generated imagery does not take. Simple objects on white are increasingly within its reach; reflections and transparency are where it still fails visibly, because a reflection has to stay consistent with a physical environment that never existed. For a jeweller, that is not a philosophical argument about authenticity — it is the practical reason a camera is still involved. Reflective work is normally combined with a standard set in the same session: matte items at packshot rates, reflective items at this one. Splitting them across two suppliers is how a catalogue ends up with two different whites. Selling on a marketplace adds a second layer of requirements on top — see Amazon-ready photography. Handling and transport of high-value pieces is agreed in advance and covered by your own insurance. Where a piece needs finishing beyond catalogue standard, that is quoted as high-end retouching.

A packshot answers what the product is. Lifestyle answers who it is for and where it belongs, which is a different question and a different budget line — usually marketing rather than e-commerce. Most brands need both and confuse them, then wonder why a white-background image performs poorly as an advertisement. This is where generated imagery sits in the middle rather than at either extreme, and it is worth being precise about it. AI builds a convincing scene around a product, but the product itself still has to be photographed live before anything can be constructed around it. The practical consequence for you is that the live session is the asset and the variations are cheap — an argument for shooting once properly rather than repeatedly and approximately. The work is billed by the hour with a minimum rather than as a package, because it varies too much to package honestly. Three hours in a shop is a different job from three hours with a model and three set-ups. An hourly structure keeps that variation visible instead of hiding it behind a vague starting price that quietly assumes the simplest version. Models, locations and props are arranged separately and billed at cost. Advertising use is a separate licence — organic social media is included, paid media is not, and that distinction is stated before the shoot rather than discovered when the campaign is booked.

For a cosmetics brand the deliverable is colour. If a shade photographs half a tone off, the image is unusable no matter how good it looks, and the failure is not aesthetic — it is a returned parcel and a complaint about the product itself. So colour-critical work is checked against the physical item during the session rather than approved on a screen afterwards, because two screens rarely agree and the product never changes its mind. This is also the clearest answer on generated imagery anywhere on this page. A shade that is approximately right is not a stylistic preference, it is a refund. Whatever generation eventually handles in this category, the colour reference has to come from the actual product photographed under controlled light. Beauty takes about as long to shoot as a portrait and several times as long to finish, and that is worth saying plainly rather than hiding behind the word premium. The image is examined at full size — skin, texture, the edge of a shade transition — and everything a portrait can leave alone has to survive that inspection. It is the heaviest finishing in the price list, which is why it cannot be priced like a session where two frames are cleaned up. Where a campaign needs finishing beyond that, it is quoted as high-end retouching. Packshots of the containers are covered under product photography and are often shot in the same session — the two answer different questions and a launch usually needs both. Makeup artist and model are arranged separately and billed at cost.

An ordinary product photograph and a marketplace-compliant one are not the same file. The main image has to sit on pure white with the product occupying a specified proportion of the frame; secondary images follow their own rules; infographic overlays have to stay legible at thumbnail size on a phone, which is where the listing is actually read. Producing this from a standard packshot set means reworking every file, which is why it is built as its own package rather than sold as an option. Rejection is the risk worth pricing against. A file that misses the specification comes back after the listing deadline, and the cost is not the reshoot — it is the launch window. Requirements are verified against the target platform before delivery, and the platform is confirmed at briefing because the rules differ between marketplaces and change without announcement. Infographics are the part most sellers underestimate. They carry the size, the material, the contents of the box and the one differentiator that would otherwise sit unread in the description. On a phone they are read in less time than a sentence takes, so they are designed for that size rather than shrunk into it. If your products are jewellery, watches, glass or polished metal, this package combines with reflective product photography — marketplace rules are a delivery layer, while a reflective surface is a shooting problem, and the two stack rather than replace each other.