About KWR Studio and The K100 System

Keeping it Real
Too Legit to Quit

What makes a website look legit? Real photos. Not stock photos and computer generated imagery. Real photos, actually shot on the actual background that you see in the final image. When you look at them closely, you see real, true-to-life detail.

If you browse around on the web or if you do a lot of online shopping, you'll see a lot of product photos that don't look quite right. They don't look like the product actually belongs on that background. The edges don't look right, the light on the product doesn't match the background. They don’t look legit, and they don’t look real.

What makes a product photo look legit? It's the way it was produced. Is it real, or is it fake? Is it the real thing, or a cheap substitute?

Keeping websites real—with legit photos—means that everything you see in the final image actually happened In Real Life!

• No AI-generated images.
• No 3D renderings.
• No taking stock photos and then slapping on an image of your label on them.
• No photos shot on the wrong background and then photoshopped onto the right background.

Fine details like texture and realistic reflections are lost in AI-generated or 3D rendered imagery, where eveything looks like a video game. We're living in the era of gamification—of photography, of every industry—and The Cheapening of everything. Nothing feels like the real thing anymore. Food doesn't taste as good, clothes don't last as long, music doesn't sound as good.

Quality has become a lost art in today’s world—the greatest casualty of The Cheapening. Despite all of this, we still do it for real, and we don't plan on ever selling out. After all, thugs don't die. They muliply!

Stepping up our Game
Continuous Improvement

What is quality? It's about the details. When it comes to photography of bottled products, it's about the way the light reflects off the product, the way it shines through to illuminate the contents, the way it hits the label to bring out the texture.

Small businesses have to compete on quality. And, as a business owner making a premium product, details matter to you—not just the craftsmanship you put into your product, but your packaging design, the texture and the quality of the label paper, special effects like embossing and foil stamping, etc. You'll see all of that texture and detail emphasized in the photos we give you.

But, in order to get better at something—in order to improve the quality of the work—you have to focus on it.

A few years ago when I decided to ditch the props and shoot only on solid backgrounds, I immediately started to pay more attention to the details of the lighting setups I was using. I started to focus on the way that very small movements in the light position would change the quality of the reflections off of the product, how adding extra diffusion panels would soften and smooth the reflections even more, how moving the side panels backwards would create more background glow in the liquid color.

Wait. Only shooting black and white backgrounds? Is't that boring? Wouldn't I want to do something more glamorous? What really sets me apart from other people is that I like the boring stuff more than the interesting stuff. Although that sounds absurd, I feel like it's more of an accomplishing to take something boring, and focus on the details of it to make it interesting rather than just jumping into a barrel full of monkeys and flailing around.

It turns out that, if you do only one thing, and you do it regularly over a long period of time, you can keep improving it every day. In other words, the best way to improve quality—to get better at something—is to keep doing it over time, continuously developing and improving the techniques. This is why I feel it's so important to focus on fewer styles of photography—so I have more consistent opportunities to improve on those key techniques.

Recently we started building custom modifiers specifically for the styles that we specialize in, continuing to refine them over time.

• We use a special 'half washer' light modifier we designed just to bring out the texture of your product's label,
• A special oval-shaped modifier to get our background glow in the right shape,
• A special strip modifier for the rim light on our black background,

and we're constantly working on more improvements.

The result is quality that keeps getting better—the same kind of quality that you can use to make a 'fine art' print, frame it and hang it on the wall in your lobby. And we've had clients do exactly that.

Keeping it Solid
A 'Slam-Dunk' Method

I started off in the mid 2000's doing web design for small business owners. One of the first things I learned from working with my clients was that quality isn't the only thing that matters. When a business owner needs product photos, they need them yesterday!

Yet, I never wanted to let the quality to go down. Normally, there's an inverse relationship between quality and speed; higher quality work tends to take more time.

But what if there was a way to give them both quality and speed? The highest quality possible, and the fastest delivery possible, at the same time? This was the question that I pondered as I walked the streets each night.

I thought about it and I realized that most of the photo work I had been doing, and the work that satisfied the client the most, was on projets where I was only using two solid background colors: 100% black, and 100% white.

The problem was that I was still trying to do everything, and most of the time I was spending was on experimentation with props and special requests that were never a big hit anyway. I figured if there was a way I could simplify what I was offering, and spend more time focusing on how to do just those two styles more efficiently and at a higher quality, I could get things done faster and better.

So I developed a system that does exactly that: It guarantees high quality and fast delivery by giving the client only the two most important styles of product photography, and combining them into a single photoshoot.

How many background colors does it take to make a website? It really shouldn't take very many. So why then do you need photos shot on 50 different backgrounds? The more the merrier, of course, but if you need to get a website launched now, or yesterday, just keep it solid and try to get those two main styles done first, and get the rest later. That's what our system is designed for - to give you those first two shots of your products, so you can get a head start on your marketing.

• We focus on only the two most useful styles to have. 100% solid background colors that go with everything. For your website, this gives you the most results in the shortest amount of time. You can use them anywhere, and they will match the background colors that are used most commonly in website templates.

• We don't use props with the K100 service. Why? Props take a lot more time. Also, solid backgrounds are going to give you more flexibility and more ways to use the photos. You can modify them as needed, combining existing products with new products when it's time to update your product line. They blend seamlessly into black background and white background web pages, emails, banners, etc.
• We shoot these photos in a way that minimizes the need for editing. This gets the job done faster. Also, by using real light to get all of the effects we need, we believe that we get more realistic and true-to-life results. Once we hit the shutter, we want to have the photo looking pretty much the way the final result is going to look, with only minor edits to be made.
• We leave the equipment set up at all times - Most of the time involved in a product photoshoot is in the setup - Setting up the lights, brackets, modifiers, etc., and then tearing it all down at the end! Since we only shoot two styles, we don't have to tear down the set after every photoshoot to make room for another style of photo. This way we cut out the majority of the time that we used to spend on a photoshoot.

And I call this Keeping it 100%, or K100 for short. 100% solid black background, 100% solid white background, no props, no gray area, no head scratching, no wasted time.

Keeping it Straight
No Gray Area

Lots of photographers shoot on black and white backgrounds. For us, the difference is we only want to shoot these two styles. We don't want to replace your photographer. We only want to get you those two main shots and help you unclog the bottleneck in your content pipeline while your photographer works on the 50 other backgrounds, lifestyle sets, and everything else.

We’re not going to waste your time. Our clear, transparent pricing structure, with rates clearly spelled out on our website, makes the K100 service easy to work with. You don't have to request a quote or a proposal. You don't need a consultation. Everything is charted out on our website. It's a quick and easy order process - no gray area!

By eliminating variables—the only variable is your product because we use the same lighting styles on everything—we eliminate the need for a long consultation and proposal process up front. There's not much to discuss because everyone already knows what's going to happen. You're going to get two background colors that go with anything, that you can use anywhere. So instead of spending our time sending emails back and forth for two weeks, we skip straight to the work.

Also, you're going to actually use these photos. Photos with props are great, but when the rubber meets the road, you'll get more mileage out of the black background and white background, because black goes with everything, and white goes with everything! All your retailers will be able to use them on their websites, catalogs, etc. Many online retailers have a rule that says everything has to be shot on a white background in order to go on the website. It can help you get retailers to pay more attention to your product if you provide them with great looking white background photos right off the bat.

99% Isn't Good Enough
Trust No One

Some people feel proud of themselves if 9 out of 10 of their clients are satisfied. We want 100% satisfaction. In order to do that, we have to be very clear about what exactly you're getting so there can't be any misunderstanding.

This is one of the reasons why we use 100% exposures on all of our backgrounds. You know the photos are going to look consistent. We can shoot a hundred different products across multiple photo shoots, at different times, shoot a new product line, and you know the backgrounds are going to match in each one. Your designer won't have spend hours editing every time he updates your design with new product photos you can just switch them out.

100% Quality Guarantee

We don't want you to just take our word for it. Expect consistent quality or a full refund. With our K100 packages we give each client a 100% quality guarantee. If you are not satisfied with the quality of the images we deliver, you have the option of a full refund, as long as you request it within 1 week after delivery and you're not actually using the photos to promote your business.

The K100 system gives you consistent results. No surprises, no wated time, no wasted money, no re-shoots. It's going to get done right the first time. Because 99% isn't Good Enough!