Photography Tips · Brussels

E-commerce Photoshoot in Belgium: What You Get and How It Is Priced

By Dmytro Derkach · Brussels-based commercial photographer

An e-commerce shoot gives you product photos made to one standard. Same light and the same crop on every item. They arrive in a private online gallery within 72 hours, with the rights for your shop and marketplaces. Product photos are priced per image, so the cost follows the size of your catalogue.

Before the shoot: a list and one reference

I always start with a list of products and the views each one needs. A typical product page has a main image on white and two or three other angles, plus a close-up and sometimes a lifestyle frame or a photo with dimensions. Then we agree on one reference image together. Every item afterwards follows that look.

How many photos each product really needs is its own question, and I've answered it in how many product photos you actually need. Settling that before the shoot is what keeps the budget under control.

Getting your products to me

You send the products or drop them off. Shipping both ways is on your side, and I keep everything for two weeks after the shoot in case a view needs redoing. Please send items clean, with labels on straight and boxes without scuffs. Retouching can fix small things, but a clean product is always faster (and cheaper).

Clothing works differently. Garments are photographed on a model or laid flat, booked by the hour rather than per image, and we fix the number of looks before the shoot.

What lands in your gallery

Every delivered image gets basic retouching of colour and light, cropped to one template for the whole batch so your shop looks consistent. Detailed or high-end retouching is available per image when a product needs it, say a cosmetics jar with tiny print or a knit where you want every fibre visible.

Photos arrive within 72 hours in a private gallery, and I keep an archive for three months in case a file goes missing. The usage rights cover marketplaces and your website, social media included, with no time limit.

How the price adds up

Product photos are priced per image, in steps. The first images cost the most and the rate drops as the number grows. There's a minimum order, and every extra image always adds to the total, so you can work out the cost of a catalogue before you book.

Two things change the maths. Glass and jewellery take from half an hour to two hours per image, so they're quoted separately. Marketplace listings built to a platform's spec, with infographics and exact file sizes, are their own package with their own steps. Both are on the price list.

Phone photos or a shoot

If you sell a handful of products and add one new item a month, your own phone photos against a window can be enough to start with. A shoot starts to pay off when the catalogue grows and the grid begins to look patchy, or when a marketplace asks for a clean white main image.

Because products travel, it doesn't matter much where in Belgium your shop is. Only shoots on location outside Brussels add travel costs. The commercial photography page has the full description of a session.