In this digital age small business owners now have all the tools they require to create websites, design their own logos, write their own marketing materials and produce their own images.

In the case of producing great photographic images rather than getting an experienced photographer there will be somebody how will say "it's OK, I have a digital camera".

Now this isn't a going to turn into a rant about how the professional photographer is losing work to weekend worriers (people who have a day job and then shoot images at the weekend for beer money, often uninsured) or people having a go themselves, I will be highlighting some common mistakes people make when doing it for themselves.

The reason why so many people think they can take their own images is that it costs nothing to take lots of images (if you exclude the cost of the equipment and the time to get the images to look right) until you have a half decent photograph and setting up your home studio is simple, a well lit room is all you need and a simple backdrop.

In the example below I have taped a piece of paper to my desk and placed my product in front.  As it's nice and sunny today I am also foregoing a tripod as the shutter speed is going to be fast enough to prevent camera shake.

So all I have to do now is hold the camera at the right distance, ensure that paper weight is in focus and keep taking photographs until I am happy with the result.

So here we have it, an image of a paper weight suitable for e-commerce.  An image of such high quality that it stands out from all other paper weights leaving the competition dead in the water.

However, it doesn't.  It is just an OKish image (taken in under 60 seconds) of a paper weight, there is nothing creative about the image, it doesn't tell your customers that this is a high quality paper weight and it certainly doesn't scream 'buy me'.

In order to that the image needs to stand out from the crowd, it needs to look better than all the other paper weights and most importantly (especially if the images is to be used on a web site) it needs to make the viewer want to see more.

To do this you need to get creative, and to do that you are are going to need a whole load of imagination, skill and equipment.  This is where a professional comes in and produces something like this.

So next time you need high quality images to promote you or your business and find yourself saying 'It's OK, I have a digital camera" remember your competitors are saying 'It's OK, I know a professional'.