Lifestyle shots

Lifestyle photography aims to tell a story about your brand and capture the emotions of your target audience.

Think of it as a glimpse into someone’s life or a particular scenario. It shows customers how your products can fit into their lifestyle, or how your products help buyers meet a goal or aspiration.

Why is lifestyle photography important for ecommerce brands?

Lifestyle photography should be a key aspect of your visual marketing strategy. In fact, 75% of ecommerce shoppers say product photos influence their buying decisions. If you showcase your products in a relatable, real-life setting, it’s easier to create an emotional connection with your customers. This will increase the chance of a conversion. 🤑

Take home pizza oven brand, Gozney. They use lifestyle images to capture a particular emotion: the feeling of eating homemade with friends in the great outdoors. 🏕️

This lifestyle photo on their homepage doesn’t feature one of their products. But it does make you want to eat a slice of delicious pizza (which you can do with one of their ovens 😉).

Where to use lifestyle shots?

You could use lifestyle photography on your homepage, ads, social feeds - really anywhere you can think of. You could even use them on your product pages. But make sure they’re not too abstract - customers want a detailed look at your products. Take a look at Finisterre to see how they get a balance between product and lifestyle photography on their product pages.

Tips for creating lifestyle photography

If you want to create your own lifestyle images, you’ll want to decide whether you’re going to do it yourself or hire and brief a professional lifestyle photographer.
Either way, here are some tips to help you with your shoot:

Understand your audience

Chances are you’ll already know what kind of customer you’re trying to attract. For example, you might be an activewear brand targeting people living in the city. In this case, your lifestyle photography will need to reflect your customers’ goals and/or lifestyle. Do they take early morning jogs through the streets? Or would they rather go on a countryside hike at the weekends?

Pick a location

Based on your target audience, you’ll need to pick a location. You might have different locations for different scenarios; an urban location for the runners and a beautiful forest for the hikers. You’ll also need to consider what kind of weather you’ll be happy with and if your shot will work in a crowded or more secluded location. Make sure you’ve got a back-up plan if the weather turns bad (unless, of course, you want some moody shots in the rain. ⛈️).

Try out different activities

This isn’t a studio shoot. Your lifestyle photos need to feel authentic and relatable to your audience. One way to do this is to ask your models to try out different activities. If you’re shooting a family setting for your sofa brand, you could ask your models to play games, read a book to the kids or build a pillow fort (why not!). This’ll make the scene feel more natural - as though you (the photographer) aren’t even there.

Test out different camera settings

Whether you’ve got a pro camera or you’re shooting from your phone, there’s loads of different camera settings that might help you capture different moods and angles. For example, you could set your camera to ‘burst’ to take a series of photos super quickly. Or, adjust the shutter speed on your camera for capturing movement.

Make use of user-generated content

Who better to show your products in action than your customers? Rather than go on extensive photoshoots, you could use user-generated content to help potential buyers understand how real customers are using your product.

Examples of lifestyle photography

Lalo

Sustainable baby homeware brand, Lalo, use loads of adorable lifestyle photos on their website. These images promote a lifestyle that many parents aspire to - raising happy kids in a clutter-free, modern environment. Even if the reality is far from perfect, Lalo are promoting sustainable living that can slot into a young family’s day-to-day life.

Patch

Plant brand, Patch, post UGC lifestyle photography on their Instagram page to show how good their products look in their customers’ homes. Scrolling through their feed is like looking through an interior design magazine. It helps that they feature pets, too. 🐶

Kelly Wynne

Handbag and accessory brand, Kelly Wynne (one of our customers), rely heavily on lifestyle photography to promote their brand vision. Their goal is to give women confidence through accessories. This is clear as soon as you click on their homepage.

Kaitlyn, the brand’s VP of Brand, Demand and Community, told us how important this type of photography is for Kelly Wynne:

“The biggest thing for us is not just photography, but use-case photography. We can make it look like a really pretty bag, but if it's two-dimensional, and you can't see it in life, it's hard to picture.”