Photography day for the Gaucho BBQ Grill Apron was in October 2022, four weeks before launch. We’d had the production units for three weeks. We knew what the apron did. The question was how to show it to people who didn’t.
What We Decided Not to Do
We rejected the studio flat-lay approach for the hero shots early in the brief discussion. A flat-lay shows a product. It doesn’t show what a product does. For the Gaucho, what it does — how it functions at the fire, how features sit when worn, how it moves during a cook — is the story. A flat-lay can’t tell that story.
We also didn’t want the apron worn by someone who looks like they’re posing. The brief was specific: worn by someone who looks like they actually cook, with tools in pockets, near a working fire.
Three Shooting Environments
We shot in three environments: a controlled workshop space for the detail shots, an outdoor setting with an active BBQ for the hero and action shots, and a close-in configuration specifically for feature documentation. Each environment had a different purpose.
The feature shots — pocket depth, bottle opener, tool loops, the D-ring hardware — ended up being as important as any of the wider shots. A customer deciding whether to spend money on the Gaucho needs to understand what each feature is and why it’s there. A close shot of the utility pocket angled at 10 degrees does more work than any lifestyle image.
What’s Still in Use
Most of the images from that October shoot are still on the product page today. That wasn’t the plan — we expected to reshoot at some point — but the images work. They show what the apron does. They answer the questions a serious buyer is asking. We’ve added images since, but nothing from that day needed replacing.
