Enhancing a Business Website with Photography

Whether you are designing a new business website from scratch or revamping an existing one, the visual focus is likely to be on its use of photography. Ipswich and Suffolk businesses, as well as those in the London area, know they can call on Stillview to make their web pages stand out from the crowd. Photographs on a website are far more than just an add-on, because they can be used as a central feature of the design. Images with the right visual impact will enhance a site's appeal, as well as helping to sell the product or service on offer.

Photography Ipswich  – Get in touch now for details

Product Photographs
Product photography is an important element for commercial sites, both on pages where products can be bought direct from the site and on those where the site owner is the manufacturer and selling stock to other outlets.

With fashion in particular, in order to compete with high street stores, online operations need to ensure the clothes they are selling can be seen clearly. Straight product shots on a plain background are ideal to show items of clothing to customers at home, with consistency being an important element here.

If all the items are shot against the same background and from a similar angle, it will be easier for a customer to choose between the different styles. It is also helpful if there is an option to examine the fashions close-up, to give an idea of the fabric and finishing. This means that high-resolution and high quality are very important. Of course, a product photographer could also take  fashion shots for your site on location or in a studio, to put across the clothes' style and practicality, or to help convey a particular lifestyle.

With new technical products, showing the item in use can help people connect with the product featured in the photography. Ipswich-based Stillview are experts in all kinds of commercial photography, from pack shots to products in use, for instance vehicles or machinery.

Business Portraits
Where you want to convey the skills of specific people within your organisation, including business portraits on your website is a great way to  connect with your customers. Putting a face to a name will often encourage prospective clients to get in touch.

Showing faces is also important to convey the high standards of customer service that your company offers. This can help to personalise a service even if it is entirely carried out online. For instance, seeing individuals in a warehouse will help customers to feel that a parcel which arrives through the post has been personally packed for them. Business portraits used on the web can be specific, for instance showing a particular solicitor, writer or engineer. However, they can also be generic, perhaps showing a smiling and friendly customer service representative "waiting for your call".

Site Banners
Many business websites have eye-catching site banners. These are usually large images running the full width of a page, which gives a strong visual impact even if the rest of the site is mainly text. A powerful image created by a business photographer can be combined with text and graphics to get across key messages and encourage new visitors to your site to explore further. A good banner can be made up of a single photo, or a composite of multiple photos may be used to create a strong graphic effect.

It is also possible for a banner to be still or animated, for instance with a constantly changing slide show, which can add a sense of energy to a site. This imaginative use of photography can help a business in Ipswich or Suffolk to get the word out about their services to customers both locally and further afield.

Blog and Article Illustrations
With corporate blogs and articles, appealing images will help to draw readers into the text and encourage them to read on. It is also valuable for SEO purposes to have photographs with suitable captions included in a site.

Portfolio Slide Shows
Where there is any visual element to the product or service being provided, a slide show is an ideal way to showcase the range of items which are available. Slide shows can be set to rotate images automatically, or may be user-driven, with controls allowing visitors to move forwards and backwards through the images.

For example, a travel company could show images of destinations and customers enjoying themselves. A self-storage company might show images of the storage premises and customers using the facilities, while any retailer of shoes and clothing could showcase the different items on sale in an ever-changing display.

Bespoke Menus and Icons
In the age of touchscreens and mobile apps, it is unfriendly to expect people to navigate around using tiny text links and buttons. Larger clickable areas are easier to use and more appealing visually. In addition, it can help a website if, rather than just being created in plain blocks of colour, these link buttons feature photographic backgrounds with composited text. This is also a way of illustrating the subject matter for each link.

The photos used can be either full focus or in a soft focus, perhaps using sharper close-ups of specific products. With photography used in this way, the overall result is a lot more "designed" and professional looking than a site just featuring plain text and buttons to click.

About Stillview
Stillview can provide high quality photography to assist with all these different uses, serving commercial clients in Ipswich, Felixstowe, Bury St Edmunds and all of Suffolk. We also have customers in Cambridgeshire, Essex and across East Anglia, as well as London PR and advertising agencies.

Commercial Photography in Ipswich – Click the link to find out more

Photography for Businesses In and Around Ipswich

Although we are increasingly in demand in London, throughout the UK and even internationally, Stillview  naturally attracts attention from local organisations needing professional photography in Ipswich, Suffolk, Essex and the surrounding area. A great number of local businesses have called on our expertise, and here we spotlight some of the work we have done for them.

Photography Ipswich  – Get in touch now to discuss your requirements.

Glasswells Furniture – Ipswich

When Glasswells opened its new furniture showroom on a retail park in Ipswich, the company wanted a striking shot of the store's exterior. The brief was to create a memorable image which could be used both on the firm's own website and in publicity material.

The obvious course would have been to take a photograph of the store in the daytime, but we decided to do something different and more eye-catching. Our solution was to shoot as evening fell, with the shop's lights turned on, which emphasised the large glass windows at the front of the showroom. This created a dramatic shot which drew the eye to the shapes and colours of the furniture inside. We also angled the photograph from the side, which meant part of the road could be seen, with the lights from the shop reflecting in the damp pavement. The result was an image which has since been used many times, both in print and on websites.

Alstons Furniture – Colchester

On this occasion, we were asked to photograph a collection of bedroom cabinets. This involved creating a bedroom set within our studio and we  worked to a brief from the firm, which suggested how it should be laid out and what colours to choose. The client also requested both external and internal views of the cabinets.

A photo stylist worked together with our photographer over a whole day to arrange the room set in every detail, arranging furniture and lighting to give a bright, airy atmosphere. After we had taken the photograph, the area of the window was altered on the image to include an external view. This painstaking process meant we ended up with an image which was just what Alstons wanted and showcased their furniture to full advantage.

Nidera – UK Head Office in Ipswich

Grain merchants Nidera run a UK haulage fleet of 35 trucks, and had taken delivery of new Mercedes-Benz vehicles. Our brief was to create a dramatic image showing one of these new trucks. At Stillview, we specialise in transport photography, so this Ipswich-based firm knew we would be able to find an unusual way of showing the trucks' capabilities.

We started by photographing the parked truck, but then adapted the image digitally, creating an effect of speed by using a photograph of a trailer. By appearing to show the truck in motion, the image expressed its power, while the glimpse of countryside beside the road suggested the setting where the trucks are normally used. We enlarged the picture to a 7m shot and this was installed in Nidera's international HQ in the Netherlands.

Karl King Transport – Ipswich

Our expertise in transport photography was called on by Ipswich firm Karl King Transport. As a market leader in distribution, the company asked us to create an image showing a fleet of its lorries. However, we needed to do this without taking several vehicles out of service for a whole day, involving unnecessary loss of productivity. We took one lorry and photographed it in several different locations, then digitised the image so that four lorries were shown, two on a bridge and two passing underneath in opposite directions. The resulting photograph put across the firm's versatility and the fact that it has a large number of lorries on the road.

Top That– Woodbridge

Woodbridge-based children's book publisher ‘Top That’ were looking to revamp their corporate identity. They wanted images they could use, not only in print, but also on their website and in PR material.

Our photographer spent a day taking photographs that reflected the ‘Top That’ image, and the brief was to show a young, dynamic, forward-thinking  company. The photographs were of staff in and around the working environment; shots were taken in each department and had to reflect what they did.

Stillview Photography has undertaken many corporate shoots over the past 33 years.

James White Fruit Juices – Ashbocking, Suffolk

Suffolk-based fruit juice producer James White asked us to showcase some of the drinks from their Uncle Cornelius range, putting across their refreshing qualities. We used a summery setting for our product shot of their Lemon Refresher drink, creating an image with the bottle and two glasses in the foreground, and a summer game of cricket behind. By contrast, for our shot of the firm's Finest Spiced Ginger, we chose a dark background with a fire in the background, suggesting the drink's warming flavour and giving a feeling of evening and relaxation. The resulting images were used on the firm's website.

About Stillview

Stillview provide striking photography for Ipswich businesses, ranging from local firms to global brands with a presence in the area. We serve clients across Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Norfolk and further afield, including many London agencies. Get in touch now to discuss our service.

Stillview Photography  – take a look at our online portfolio.