Photograph your honey in beautiful light to capture its color.

Guest post by Samantha and Daniel Johnson

Maybe you’re an amateur shutterbug and love to snap photos of beautiful waterfalls and sunsets. Or maybe you’ve never picked up a camera before and aren’t even sure where to begin. In either case, setting out to photograph your honey and/or honey products might seem to be a daunting task. And yet there are many reasons to want attractive photography of your products: to illustrate your offerings on a website like Etsy, to place on a website or blog, to post on your Facebook page, or to use on posters or in brochures advertising your products.

Maybe you’re an amateur shutterbug and love to snap photos of beautiful waterfalls and sunsets. Or maybe you’ve never picked up a camera before and aren’t even sure where to begin. In either case, setting out to photograph your honey and/or honey products might seem to be a daunting task. And yet there are many reasons to want attractive photography of your products: to illustrate your offerings on a website like Etsy, to place on a website or blog, to post on your Facebook page, or to use on posters or in brochures advertising your products.

Maybe you’re an amateur shutterbug and love to snap photos of beautiful waterfalls and sunsets. Or maybe you’ve never picked up a camera before and aren’t even sure where to begin. In either case, setting out to photograph your honey and/or honey products might seem to be a daunting task. And yet there are many reasons to want attractive photography of your products: to illustrate your offerings on a website like Etsy, to place on a website or blog, to post on your Facebook page, or to use on posters or in brochures advertising your products.

Quality photography is an important component of marketing. Blurry or badly composed photos do nothing to promote your products—such photographs only detract from your presentation. You want images that are tack-sharp, attractively composed, and that present your products in the finest way possible. How can you achieve this—especially if you’re not an experienced photographer?

• Think about the background. Your bottle of honey is obviously the focal point of the image, but don’t forget to take a look at the background. If you can see a basket of laundry, a pile of books, or somebody’s garbage can in the background, you’d better snap another photo. Aim for clear backgrounds without any distractions. Try photographing your products against a neutral backdrop (placemats can be a simple and easy choice).

• Lighting is everything. We know you probably don’t have access to a studio filled with professional lights, and that little built-in flash on your camera will probably do more harm than good in this particular instance. But you can still achieve beautiful, golden lighting that will lend an attractive feeling to your photography. One excellent method is to use the light from a window—preferably a window that faces to the north. Don’t actually include the window in the photograph—this will lead to other problems—but just use its light to bathe your subject (the honey bottle) in a soft, pleasant light

• Back up and zoom in. If your camera has the ability to zoom the lens in and out, that’s great. Be sure to use it. Don’t take wide angle (“zoomed out”) shots—these tend to take in too much of your surroundings and they make things look stretched. Instead, use the zoom feature to narrow down the field of view and make your bottle of honey the star of the picture. You may have to back yourself away from the honey so that you can zoom in on it properly.

• Shoot, and shoot, and shoot. Gone are the days when people took only one or two photos of a subject because of the high costs of film and developing. With your digital camera, you can take as many photos as you wish without cost, so don’t restrain that shutter-clicking finger. Take multiple photos, slightly change your setup or settings, and snap a few more. By increasing the number of images that you shoot, you increase your chances of snapping the perfect photo.

• Think outside the bottle. We agree—photos of golden bottles of honey are beautiful and eye catching. But there are lots of other images that would definitely have a place on your honey-related website, blog, or Facebook page. Get out to your hives and start snapping images. Photograph your bees as they enter and exit the hive; photograph the interior of your hive; photograph your frames right before you extract the honey. Get some help from friends and have them photograph you in your bee suit and veil. Try to capture each aspect of the beekeeping and honey-making process so that you can share the excitement with your friends and fans.

Excerpted from The Beginners Guide to Beekeeping written by Daniel & Samantha Johnson. All rights reserved.