Lifestyle vs White Background Jewelry Photography, Part 2

Welcome to Part 2 of lifestyle and white background jewelry photography. In this post, we’re going to break down the different advantages and disadvantages of using lifestyle photography for your jewelry business.

In Part 1, we discussed the reasons for you to consider white background jewelry photography. If you haven’t read part 1 yet, click here to learn about the many advantages and the disadvantage of white background jewelry photography

To sum it up for you, here’s what we found about white background jewelry photography.

Advantages

1. It establishes consistency.
2. It shows the details clearly, without distraction.  
3. It emphasizes the true colors of your jewelry pieces, especially colored gems.
4. It is a great time and cost-saver.

Disadvantage

1. It is not always appropriate for social media as it looks salesy and clinical.

But don’t settle yet! Let’s explore the good and the bad sides of lifestyle jewelry photography. Read on!

“Lifestyle photography can be the most genuine form of capturing meaningful moments. That artistic sense of rawness, candidness, and carefree concept seeping through in every shot is so powerful it can steal people’s attention more quickly than one could ever imagine.”

Which would you prefer? 

Can’t decide? Let’s proceed!

The Pros and Cons of Using Lifestyle Jewelry Photography

The Pros

1. It tells stories. 

The unique power of lifestyle photos comes from their ability to tell stories, which adds more meaning to the jewelry you’re selling. It describes and adds context to your product by showing your target customers how it looks in its natural environment.

The beauty of lifestyle photos lies in their potential to attract sales by evoking emotions. The stories encapsulated in your product photos can evoke emotions that create desires, which eventually lead to purchases. Unlike white background jewelry photography, the context manifested in lifestyle photos can encourage potential customers to build a story around your jewelry pieces and develop that story into a kind of lifestyle that they can aspire to.

2. It helps increase your social media engagement. 

In jewelry photography, one size doesn’t fit all; hence, it’s recommended to use different photography approaches based on your marketing goal. Lifestyle product photos will benefit your social media pages in terms of engagement, especially if you have models in them.

According to statistics, lifestyle photos of people using your products get 38% more likes than standalone products or those products without faces. This doesn’t mean you have to bombard your followers with selfies or portrait shots. Remember, one of the good things about lifestyle photos is the immeasurable freedom it gives you to be creative and artistic. So, embrace it and use it.

3. It humanizes your business.

Sometimes, jewelers tend to forget that people are easily put off by heavy advertisements or brands that incessantly scream business without human consideration.

Lifestyle photos are an eye-catching way to humanize your business. It brings balance to your product imagery by adding a touch of human emotion to every jewelry photo. For this reason, lifestyle photos are known to build a natural connection with potential customers.

When finding the right balance between lifestyle jewelry photography and white background jewelry photography always consider the 80/20 rule in which 80% of your content is focused on establishing engagement and enlightening and educating customers while 20% is allocated to self-promotional content.

4. Your product becomes more relatable to your potential customers.

As mentioned in the previous section, lifestyle photos help you establish a natural connection with your customers. Building a connection means you’re able to lock in your customers’ attention. From here, they move to another phase which is visualization. When you get attracted to a product photo, you build stories in your head usually of how it will look on you should you purchase the jewelry piece.

Lifestyle photos help you create that environment of visualization because it shows your jewelry products in real-life situations. The product becomes realistic, relatable, and identifiable.

5. It explains what your product is about.

Are you selling jewelry pieces with complex designs or those that require proper styling? Lifestyle photos can help explain what your product is about or how it should be worn. For instance, if you’re selling necklaces for layering, you can do a lifestyle photoshoot to show how buyers should wear them and the right neckline to match them with. This demonstration eliminates confusion in buyers’ heads as the photos help them understand what your product is and what to do with it.

Use lifestyle jewelry photography to provide buyers with a more tangible context not only for dimension but more so for styling.

The Cons

1. It can be costly and time-consuming at times.

Depending on the lifestyle theme you’re going for, taking lifestyle jewelry photographs may be too costly and time-consuming for you. For one, you may need to pay for models if you don’t have anyone you know who’s willing to model for you for free or if you want to use professional models. Aside from model expenses, you also have to look for the most fitting location, props, stylists, and creative directors/assistants

Looking at the things you need above, it’s easy to know that it can also be time-consuming. The time you’ll spend looking for locations and models alone might not be possible to accomplish in a day. In addition, not all models you’ll find can deliver what you need; hence, it might require going back and forth in the process.

2. It can be distracting, especially for sure buyers.

Unlike the white background jewelry photos that put your jewelry piece in focus, lifestyle photos involve too many elements that might not be necessary, especially for buyers who already know what they need. Sometimes, sure buyers have their minds so made up already that when they look at your product photos, all they need are straightforward product details and features. There’s a possibility that you’ll lose them, particularly if your main photo is a lifestyle photo. They might not be too willing to explore beyond that heavily-styled photo or don’t have the time to waste that they’ll quickly move on to the next product photo or worse, the next available brand.

The Verdict

As it shows, white background jewelry photography and lifestyle product photography can help you achieve your sales and marketing goals in very distinct ways. It’s really not a case where the former is a far better choice than the other or vice versa.

In fact, it would be ideal to incorporate both jewelry photography approaches into your product visual process since they serve you in different ways. Who says you can’t have the best of both worlds?! In jewelry photography, you definitely can!

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