You built something exceptional. In a crowded market, it should not blend in.
Your product wins once it's in someone's hands. The photograph is what gets it there.
I work with brands your size. Almost all of them founder led. You're still hands on, even making the product yourself. What I photograph is the product and the person behind it, in real light, in the room where it's actually made. Then I bring the product into my studio, where every variable is mine to control. That's the part your competitors can't copy and AI can't fake.
These do not blend in
Spirits, wine and beer. Skincare and personal care. Premium goods and the people who make them. Every image a real shoot, finished by hand.
“Transformed our product imagery from ‘nice’ to absolutely jaw-dropping.”
Liquids and Dynamics
Pours, splashes, condensation, suspended motion. It's the most technically demanding work in this category, most product photographers don't attempt it, and it's where a generated image falls apart most obviously. If your product is poured, it deserves to be photographed being poured. And if it isn’t, liquid is still the fastest way to give a still object motion: water breaking around a serum bottle, or across a watch case.
Brand and the people behind it
One engagement. The product and the person who makes it, in the same light, in the same room, on the same day. Large brands shoot product and people separately, through different agencies, and you can always tell.
Anyone can generate a bottle. Anyone can generate a person. Nobody can generate a bottle and a person who were plainly in the same room at the same hour. That's the reason this is the engagement I'd point most founders toward.
Most people do. Making self-conscious people look like themselves is the part of this I'm best at, and it's most of what I do all week.
You don't have to be. One day in front of the camera produces a library that keeps working for months without you in it again.
Then the people behind it are your maker, your team, your hands, your bench. The story still has a human in it. It doesn't have to be you.
Founders, in their own words
"Transformed our product imagery from 'nice' to absolutely jaw-dropping. These images have not only elevated our brand but have also driven higher consumer engagement and measurable growth."
"His images capture the luxurious, premium product experience we want for our customers. He never settles for anything less than excellence."
"A remarkable ability to understand not only our vision, but the craft distilling industry, and translate it into stunning visuals. The quality of his work speaks for itself."
What it costs to stand out
In CAD. Three products in a half day, not ten. Setup is most of the work, and doing three properly is worth more than rushing a catalogue.
- Half day, studio or on location
- Three products, covered properly
- 12 to 15 delivered images, every one retouched
- Every crop and format you need, web, product page, 4:5 and 1:1, print
- Pre-shoot consult and a written shoot plan
- Two rounds of feedback
- Full day, on location at your workshop, studio or distillery
- Six products
- Founder or maker portraits, two to three looks
- Process and place: hands at work, the batch, the tools, the room
- 20 to 25 delivered images, all retouched
- Three rounds of feedback
- Two days, together or on separate dates for seasonal work
- Team and supporting portraits
- 40+ delivered images, built as a library to run for months
- Asset set specced to your actual channels
- Liquids and Dynamics available as an add-on
Included in every engagement
- Perpetual, unlimited usage rights. The images stay yours, everywhere, forever
- Every crop and format, no upcharge
- A written shoot plan before the shoot, so nothing is a surprise
- Retouching on every delivered image
- Delivery in 15 days from the shoot, or from receipt of product
- Travel within 50 km included
Exceptional is easy to claim. Harder to show.
You charge more than the mass-produced version, and what justifies that is how the thing is made. Small batch. By hand. Sourced close to home. The trouble is those words are free. Every brand on the shelf uses them, including the ones running a line in a factory you’ll never see.
So the words do you no good. The pictures do. Because pictures offer credible proof that you're unique. A bench. A pair of hands. A room with your name on it. The person who decides what gets thrown away.
- Small batch is proved by a batch, on a bench, that you can count
- Handmade is proved by hands, with the wear left in
- Locally sourced is proved by the raw material beside the finished thing
- Exacting standards are proved by what got rejected
- A real person behind it is proved by the person
Your Custom Photo Brief
Get the specific photos your brand needs to stand out on a shelf, in a page of search results, or in a feed. Answer just twelve questions about how you make it and where it sells.
Specific to your product, not a generic list for your category. Built by a tool Gary made from the way he scopes a shoot. About ten minutes.
See what it isA larger competitor buys juice to a specification and hits the same number every year. You cannot, and you have stopped pretending to, which is why the orchard and the year go on the label. That is a strong story and it is currently invisible.
01 The label, square on, in even daylight. The least interesting photograph on the list and the one you will use most. Shot once, correct forever.
05 The reject bin, beside the keep pile. Both in frame, so the proportion reads. Every competitor claims exacting standards. You can show what the standard costs you.
06 Crates of collected fruit in the truck bed. This is the picture of the sentence that converts.
How a shoot actually runs
Knowing which pictures you need is the start of this, not the end of it. Here is what happens after that.
We plan the pictures themselves
Not just what to shoot, but how each frame gets made. Lighting, angle, props, the order we work in, what needs a controlled setup and what has to happen at your bench. You approve the plan and the cost before anything is shot.
We shoot it, where it's made
In my studio for controlled product work, or on location at your bench, your workshop, wherever it's actually made. Product and people in the same session, so the whole set belongs together.
You get the library
Every image retouched, in every crop and format you need, within 15 days. Yours perpetually, to use anywhere, with no licence to renew and nothing to come back and ask for.
The person behind the camera
Gary is back-to-back Commercial Photographer of the Year. Before the camera became the job he wrote code in the games industry, designed and built furniture, and travelled selling his own work.
Which is the part worth knowing. He has made a thing or two with his hands and then had to go and sell it, so he understands the position you are in rather than just photographing it.
The promise is short and it's the whole thing. Real light, real moment, real people. Never an AI image passed off as a photograph, never retouching that turns your product into something you can't ship. The product your customer unpacks should look like the one in the photo that sold it.
Start a conversationQuestions founders ask
Won't professional photos look too polished and staged?
They can, and that's a real risk worth naming. Sterile product-on-white gets scrolled past, and it's also exactly the work a generator now does for pennies. That's not what I'm selling. The work I'd point you toward is the opposite: your actual room, your actual hands, real light with something at stake in it. Context, not polish.
We're pretty small. Is it too early for us?
Sometimes, honestly, yes. If you're pre-launch and every dollar is in the product, spend it there. The moment this pays is when something is riding on the imagery: a launch, a new market, a retail push, a price you need to justify. If you're not there yet, say so and I'll tell you straight.
Can't I just use AI for this?
For some things, yes, and you probably already are. But one published benchmark of 850 products found the best model available got the product right under a third of the time, with logo and text distortion the single most common failure and colour shift close behind. If your label is your brand, those are the two failures you cannot afford.
How many products fit in a half day?
Three, and that's deliberate. Setup is most of the work in product photography, and three products lit and styled properly will do more for you than ten rushed. In practice it runs two to four: a simple product might leave room for a fourth, and something complicated, like glass, liquids or a product with many parts, might mean two done well. If you need a larger range covered, ask, and I'll quote it as its own thing.
Who owns the images?
You do, perpetually and without limits. Use them on your site, your listings, your ads, your packaging, in print, for as long as you like. No licence to renew, no expiry, and no call from me in two years about extending anything.
I'm not in Greater Vancouver. Will you travel?
Yes. Travel around Greater Vancouver is included; further afield is quoted openly as part of the project. It's usually a smaller number than people expect.
What do I need to have ready?
Your product, and a sense of where the images will live. Props and styling are included unless there's something specific to your brand that only you have. If you're shipping product to me, we agree the details in advance.
Tell me what you make
A sentence about the product, and where these images need to work. I'll tell you honestly whether this is the right moment for you, and what it would take.