Lifestyle & E-Commerce Brand Photography
Brand: Swim Shady, a Northern-Beaches based beach accessories brand
Assets needed: High quality, professional images for e-com website, social media, and all branding material.
Brief: Shoot lifestyle images of products with models and flat lay shots, both on location at a beach in Nelson Bay. We have a range of products which needed multiple styles of outdoor lifestyle shots – for example, swim shorts on a model running in the water, on the beach, then standard still life shots. We needed people who could handle those conditions and a very tight deadline turnaround. My brief wasn’t as detailed as it should be but Elena overdelivered the standard I was hoping for. It was a big responsibility.
We chatted with Founder/Director Jeremy Scott…
What’s your brand? We designed and developed a lightweight, compact, portable beach sun shade for solo beach-goers and travellers, called Swim Shady. We also sell our own-brand premium beach accessories - beach towels, men’s swim shorts, and reversible beach bags.
How long have you been running your business? We launched Dec 6, 2024. My partner Elizabeth and I run the business together and we had a baby last August. It’s been full on! We wanted to launch before Christmas, especially for the Australian summer, so the pressure was on to get the branding shoot done.
What made you decide to have professional photos taken for your business/brand? We’re a premium brand, e-com business and our shopfront is our website. It’s extremely important that our images are a highlight and correct representation of our brand. We’re also wholesaling to retail so we need proper, high quality, professional shots. A no brainer.
How did you land on booking Elena for your photo session? Our relationship with Elena started with doing baby photos when our son was born last August, and we did a newborn shoot with her. Elizabeth sourced her out and we had an amazing day together. Elena was very professional, knew exactly what she was doing, had a very good aura and feel. She was cruisy - shoes off at the door, get around in bare feet – and she looked after our son and us so well. The shoot went really well and she was enthusiastic about our business, so she was a natural fit to do our branding photo shoot.
Did you have anything you were a bit nervous about having professional photos taken? And how did it turn out? The weather is such a big thing when you book talent, production team and a location shoot away from Sydney – we had a video shoot planned and Elena came to do stills shots at the same time. She really fitted in with the hectic day, she’d be down one end of the beach at one point, then the other end or hanging a towel in a tree to shoot. We delayed the shoot due to the weather the day before the shoot. Elena worked around that and could be flexible, which was great. No point shooting an outdoor brand in bad weather! Shooting in not-perfect weather was a non-negotiable for me.
‘Our main hero image is the one from this branding shoot, and it will continue to be our hero image for some time’, Jeremy Scott, Founder/Director, Swim Shady
How did you decide where to shoot? We shot in Nelson Bay. My partner and I had a holiday up there a few years prior at Fingal Bay, but realised there was a beautiful beach - Box Beach - nearby, which was a bit more private and looked like you could be anywhere in the world when you use the drone. We loved the exotic feel and remoteness. The Swim Shady is mainly designed for solo users and is made to be convenient for travellers, and the location resonated with the brand story we were telling on the day. It doesn’t look state or city specific, so you can’t tell where it was.
How do you plan to use your photos? On our website, social media, ads, stories. We have an Expo in Sydney in Feb so we’ll use the images on our stand. Presentation and shopfronts for retailers - if they come on board, they want to use our photos. They want to use high quality images and if you don’t have high quality images, it lessens your chances to collaborate.
What are your best memories of the day? We got everything I thought we needed. I knew we had the right team, and we had a laugh. I knew Elena had a good time too, and we all got on really well. We had deadlines on certain parts of the day due to where the sun was, so the pressure was on, but fun and smiles took over the pressures. I’m not the most creative, so couldn’t imagine fully how things would look but the shots are exactly what I hoped for. Our main hero image is the one from this launch shoot, and it will continue to be our hero image for some time.
What advice would you give to another brand considering getting photos done? Your due diligence has been done! You don’t need to search any further! You’ll get a good vibe from Elena, she knows what she’s doing, professional, and creative. Depends what your products are – if you need someone to think outside the square, she’s the one.
