The Client and Their Brief
We’ve worked with The Body Shop on a number of shoots over the years, creating everything from product and texture photography to creative campaign imagery and video.
It’s a relationship we’ve always enjoyed. The briefs give us plenty of room to think creatively, while still needing to feel unmistakably The Body Shop. There’s a lot of competition in skincare and beauty, so brands need imagery that hits the mark. It needs to feel right for the brand, stand out in a busy market and, ultimately, sell the product.
This project was cosmetic product photography shot on location. Rather than creating everything from scratch in the studio, we were looking for real environments with character, texture and a natural sense of place.
The location was a beautiful old cottage in Wimborne, Dorset. With its aged walls, rustic furniture and slightly imperfect interiors, it gave us something that can be difficult to recreate convincingly in a studio: authenticity. Locations also offer variation. Sometimes that sparks a new idea, or an interesting perspective.
Lighting is, of course, at the heart of what we do. We take enough kit to turn a simple location shoot into a professional production when we need to. No compromise.
What We Did
Work at the rate of inspiration.
Location shoots are often about responding to what you find.
You can’t move a wall because it’s the wrong colour or redesign a room halfway through the day. Instead, we look for the details that work and build the images around them.
For this shoot, that meant bathrooms, bedrooms, textured walls, old furniture and plenty of natural daylight. We can, of course, cut this out, but sometimes we’ll work with beautiful, streaming sunshine rather than against it.
We worked with stylist Pippa Silvers, whose eye for detail and collection of authentic props helped bring the sets together.
The styling was deliberately natural. Flannels, plants, trays, blocks and other simple props helped create a sense of everyday use without overwhelming the products. Lived in, rather than overly curated.
Lighting was kept equally considered. We allowed the existing daylight to do much of the work, then shaped it with additional diffused light and bounce where needed. The aim wasn’t to make the location look artificially lit; it was to retain the softness and atmosphere of the space while making sure the products looked their best.
That balance is important with location photography. The environment needs to feel real, but the product still has to be beautifully controlled.
The Creative Approach
The Body Shop has a strong visual identity built around natural ingredients, colour and a more considered approach to beauty.
That gave us a useful starting point for the photography. Rather than forcing a look onto the location, we worked with its existing character and found ways to complement the products within it.
Warm, organic tones sit alongside the packaging, while botanical details and tactile fabrics add texture without becoming distracting.
There’s also a practical consideration to this kind of shoot. When you’re photographing a number of product ranges, the images need to work individually but still feel like part of the same campaign.
We paid attention to composition, colour, negative space and the positioning of the products so that the resulting images could be used consistently across the range.
How It Looks
The Results
The finished photography gave The Body Shop a collection of cosmetic product and range images with a warm, natural aesthetic that felt right for the brand.
For us, it was another example of how much can be achieved by combining a strong location with thoughtful styling and controlled lighting.
And, as with many of our projects with The Body Shop, the process was collaborative from start to finish. We were trusted to respond to the brief, make decisions on the day and find the images within the location.
That’s the part of these shoots we enjoy most: having a clear brief, then working out how to make something genuinely good from it.
Planning a cosmetic or beauty campaign?
Whether you have a fully formed brief or just the beginnings of an idea, we can help turn it into photography that feels right for your brand.
