The Client and Their Brief
Elliot Brown is a British watch brand known for robust, distinctive watches designed with adventure in mind. We have been shooting their e-commerce product photography since they launched in 2015.
The brief was to create a series of creative watch photography that could give their advertising some real visual impact. Rather than simply documenting each watch, the images needed to work as hero imagery — photographs with enough character and presence to stand out across social media and at trade events, where they might be printed on banners or flyers.
With a number of watches and different stories to tell, there was also an opportunity to approach each image individually. We were given total creative freedom, so each photograph could be a response to the watch in front of the camera.
The result is a collection that doesn’t necessarily feel like a traditional photographic series, and some images push the boundaries of what might be expected from the brand. But we had adventure in mind too.
There were also three simple tests that underpinned every image:
Is it high resolution? Is it interesting? Does the watch look good?
What We Did
Creating worlds around the watches
We’re big fans of getting our hands dirty here at DE Studios. Quite literally, in some cases.
Rather than relying on ready-made backgrounds or props, we like building the world around a product ourselves. Here’s a run-down of how some of these images came together.
The burnt log
The white watch photographed against the burnt log started with a little homework. Mark burned four or five logs in his fire pit the night before the shoot, then brought them all into the studio to see which had the most interesting texture on camera.
The idea came from the Elliot Brown homepage, where a group of people are shown sitting around a campfire. It was a small visual connection to the brand, but one that gave the image a little more meaning than simply putting a watch on a piece of wood.
The sandy landscape
For the gunmetal Beachmaster, Will took inspiration from Dune and created a miniature sandy landscape in the studio.
It took a couple of hours to sculpt a 5kg bag of sand into the right shape. The result gives the watch its own landscape without relying on a conventional product photography background.
Mountain rescue, in water
The Mountain Rescue Canford was photographed sitting among rocks from our local river. The rocks came into the studio for the shoot and, importantly, went straight back afterwards.
To create the movement in the water, we used our air compressor to create the rippling effect around the watch. A simple piece of equipment, but one that gave the image a sense of movement and helped bring the scene to life.
120kg of steel
The top-down image of the NIVO watch was shot on a 120kg piece of steel sourced from a local scrapyard.
We only had one watch, so rather than photographing multiple watches separately, we rigged the camera on a stand and moved the watch into position several times. The individual frames were then combined in post-production to create the final image.
And yes, we really do hate lifting that piece of steel.
The Arne
The Arne was photographed next to a wonderfully gnarly 30-year-old mirror that had previously been treated with something from a garden.
Its age and imperfections gave us a surface with plenty of character — exactly the sort of thing that would be difficult to replicate convincingly with a manufactured backdrop.
A different side of the brand
For the ladies’ Kimmeridge, we wanted to show another side of Elliot Brown — something a little more everyday and fashion-led.
We brought in a model and photographed the watch in a more lifestyle-oriented setting, giving the brand a different visual language from the more rugged imagery elsewhere in the shoot.
For the colourful close-up, we created the effect by holding neon acrylic shapes in front of the camera. The acrylic catches the light and creates the bold blocks of colour around the watch.
Real materials. Real ideas.
There wasn’t a single formula behind these images. Each one started with the watch, the brand and a question: what could we build around this to make the image more interesting?
Sometimes the answer was a bag of sand. Sometimes it was a river, a burnt log or 120kg of scrap steel.
The result is a collection of genuinely individual hero images, created with real materials, practical experimentation and plenty of hands-on craft.
That’s an important part of our approach to creative product photography. The idea doesn’t have to be complicated. It just has to give people a reason to stop and look.
Making the product the hero
Creative product photography shouldn’t lose sight of the product itself.
Composition, lighting and depth of field were used to control where the eye lands, while reflections, textures and movement add atmosphere without taking attention away from the watch.
The result is imagery with a stronger sense of character than a conventional product photograph, while retaining the detail and clarity needed to communicate the product properly.
Photography built for advertising
Hero imagery has a different job to straightforward e-commerce photography. It needs to catch attention quickly, establish a feeling and give a brand something distinctive to communicate with.
That’s particularly important when an image needs to work in advertising photography, social media, at a trade event or as part of a high-end editorial or magazine placement.
For Elliot Brown, the varied visual treatments created a library of watch photography that could be used across different campaigns and communications, while keeping the watches themselves at the centre of every image.
How It Looks
The Results
The real test of hero photography is what happens after the shoot.
Elliot Brown’s marketing team have told us they’ve used the images “loads” since the project — across social media, advertising and the many trade shows that are an important part of the brand’s marketing. That includes events across the West Coast of America, where the photography has been used on printed banners, flyers and other promotional materials.
The images also give Elliot Brown something different from their everyday photography. The brand has an in-house photographer producing a lot of lifestyle content, so these photographs weren’t intended to replace that work. They were designed to give the marketing team another visual tool — something more unexpected and attention-grabbing when they needed to make a bigger statement.
That difference has proved useful. The creative approaches gave the team a bank of distinctive hero images they could reach for when a campaign, social post or trade show needed something with more visual impact.
Rather than creating photography that was used once and forgotten, the project produced a set of assets that have continued to earn their place in the brand’s marketing.
And perhaps that’s the best result: when Elliot Brown need an image that really needs to stand out, they have something different to reach for.
How do you create distinctive product photography for a watch brand?
There isn’t necessarily one visual formula that works for every product.
The most effective creative watch photography starts by understanding what makes the product and brand distinctive, then finding a visual approach that amplifies those qualities.
For Elliot Brown, that meant moving beyond a single photographic style and creating different visual worlds around the watches — from bold colour to water, sand and texture.
The aim was simple: create images worth looking at.
