Est. 2009
E-commerce product photography for online stores and Amazon product listings is our most popular service. Professional e-commerce photos with sharp image quality and proper lighting highlight your product’s features, make your product stand out among competitors, and bring an established and professional look to your online store or product listing. By better communicating your product’s features, you can reduce product returns and increase customer conversions. We’re familiar with Amazon’s product photography requirements and provide you with Amazon optimized images ready for upload.
Hero shots are first impression attention grabbing product photos. These are normally minimally styled solo product photos with creative lighting and low angle camera techniques along with creative editing designed to create a mood, capture attention, and establish interest in your product. Hero shots are perfect for print or web advertisements like publications, billboards, trade shows, social media ads, and website home page banners.
Lifestyle product photography shows your product being used in its natural environment and sometimes with a model. They are intended to demonstrate the use of your product and allow customers to envision how the product will fit into their lifestyle. These photos are a perfect compliment to white background e-commerce photos in an online store or an Amazon product listing. Lifestyle photos typically include props and a styled environment and can be produced either in studio or on location and with or without a model.
Nothing shows off your clothing and accessory products in your online store like fashion product photography with a professional model. Unlike e-commerce photos shot on a tabletop or mannequin, fashion photography communicates important characteristics about your product like fit and relative size, while allowing the customer to envision how the item may look on them. Professional fashion photos give your store or product listing a more established and personable feel.
360º interactive product photography allows your customers to use their cursor or finger on a smartphone to rotate an image of your product to see all sides of it. This is becoming a popular trend with many online stores because 360º interactive images communicate the most information about your product in one image, which can help customers decide to buy your product and reduce product returns. We can produce 360º interactive images of most products large and small.
We offer a variety of background options for studio product photography. In addition to physical backdrops, we can change the background color or make the background transparent in post production, allowing the product to be overlaid on stock images and other graphic or web content.
Our photo studio is equipped with wide backdrops, high ceilings, and a giant roll-up door, allowing us to photograph large products right at our studio. Alternatively, we can bring our camera and lighting equipment to your location and photograph products that are too big or heavy to move.
Ghost mannequin is a technique for photographing clothing items on a mannequin where the mannequin itself is not visible. This process gives your clothing a 3D effect, allowing you to see the inner collar of clothing while retaining the shape and fit of your clothing on the mannequin.
Many of the e-commerce photos we create on a regular basis are used on Amazon. We are very familiar with Amazon’s image requirements and recommendations. In addition to high resolution images, we provide a copy of your images optimized for Amazon and ready for upload.
Close up macro images are a great way to highlight small features, details, textures, and the material quality of your product. With a combination of high quality macro lenses and focus stacking techniques, we can achieve sharp and detailed macro images with focus throughout the entire product.
Consistency is important in keeping an online store or product listing looking professional and clean. We pay close attention to details ensuring continuity of size, color, and position between images. For regular client’s, we keep a record of product setups and image archives to ensure consistency on future jobs.
Donald Carlton - Owner & Photographer
I’m a photographer based in San Diego, California. I create clean and modern commercial photography for businesses looking for a new and improved image for their brand.
I started my photography business in 2009, shortly after leaving the U.S. Coast Guard where I served for four years. Since then, I have created thousands of photos for online stores, advertisements, company websites, product packaging, social media, print catalogs, and publications. I work with many San Diego and Southern California businesses both large and small as well as some national brands. You may have seen some of my work on product packaging in stores like Costco, product listings on Amazon or Wayfarer, or billboards around Southern California. I love what I do and I enjoy producing quality content and building long-term relationships with small businesses. Several of my clients have been with me for almost ten years.
When quality and service matters most, you can put your trust in me. With over a decade of commercial photography experience, a degree in marketing, and an understanding of branding and consumer psychology, I bring a creative and strategic mindset to producing images that enhance your brand and help sell your product. I believe the quality of a brand’s images have a direct impact on sales and the perceived value of your product and brand, so I take time for details like symmetry, light direction, reflections, sharpness, color accuracy, and continuity to accurately display your product’s features and keep your brand looking professional and established. Other photographers and studios may offer similar services, maybe even lower prices, but when you work with me, you get my personal dedication, flexibility, and high standards for photographic quality and customer service.
In 2012, I co-founded a local photography workshop and I’ve been teaching and mentoring beginner and enthusiast photographers ever since. When I’m not creating photos for clients and teaching workshops, I enjoy playing guitar, traveling, and getting outdoors camping and taking landscape photos. You can view my landscape photography at donaldcarlton.com.
Unite Haircare
Laura Davidson
Urban Armor Gear
FOX Sports San Diego
Solar Turbines
Aroma Housewares
Spinergy
Elūm Designs
Qualcomm
MTV
Taylor & Pond
Global Amici
“Donald is a gifted photographer that understands the customer’s needs. I highly recommend his services!”
– Steve Cabouli, CEO, iWallet Corp.
“We are one of the nation’s premier mobile advertising firms and we trust only Donald with our high-profile clients. When it comes to professionalism and pleasing our clients, we know our work is in good hands with Donald.”
– Matt Everett, CEO, GoAutoAds
“Donald and his team are extremely professional, a true pleasure to work with and deliver way above expectations. I will definitely work with him again. Two thumbs up!!”
– Marcel Roche, Illumina Inc.
“Donald Carlton is a professional photographer that takes the time to make sure you get the right image that you are looking for. He is flexible, accommodating and will be sure to do any retouches necessary. The images were timely uploaded and he works very well with lighting.”
– Laurie B.
We are not currently accepting new clients. Project inquiries will not receive a response.
7950 Silverton Avenue, Suite 108
San Diego, California 92126
