UGC photo examples and how to brief them

Six kinds of still and the slot each one fills

Stills usually get briefed as an afterthought, as a few photos too, and come back as six versions of the same arrangement. Name the type instead. These six cover nearly everything a product page and a static ad set need.

• In-hand scale shotThe product held, unstyled, against a hand or a familiar object so size can be judged. This is the frame that prevents the return from somebody who expected it to be bigger.
• Action frameCaught during use: the pump half depressed, the zip mid-pull, the spoon lifting. A little motion blur is the point here, not a fault to reshoot.
• Lived-in arrangementThe product on a real surface with the surface's history left in: a ring from a mug, a charging cable, crumbs near the edge. It is the flat lay's honest cousin and the hardest of the six to fake on a set.
• Result close-upOnly the outcome, filling the frame: the texture sitting on skin, the finish on wood, the crumb of the loaf. It goes next to the claims that need something to look at.
• In placeThe product where it lives: on the shelf, in the gym bag, beside the kettle. This one answers where it goes, a question product pages almost never address.
• Person in frameA recognisable human holding or wearing the thing, eye contact optional. It is the only type here that needs a release signed, so brief it knowing that.

The tells that separate a real room from a set

The difference is not technical quality. A good UGC still is often worse-lit than your studio work and outperforms it anyway, because what it carries is evidence of a room somebody lives in.

1. One direction of lightWindow light from a single side, with a shadow that tells you where it came from. Two lamps fighting each other is the quickest giveaway of a set.
2. One thing out of placeA phone face down, a crumpled towel, a label turned slightly off its axis. A single imperfection is what makes the rest of the frame credible.
3. Hands that get usedUnretouched knuckles, a chipped nail, a watch strap. Smoothing hands in post is where brand teams accidentally undo the whole booking.
4. Framed the way phones frameShot as it will be seen, vertical or square, without the centred symmetry that a tripod and a spirit level produce.
5. A background that dates the roomA visible socket, a kettle, a stretch of skirting board. Specificity reads as a real address rather than a rented studio.
6. No presetAsk for the file as it came off the camera. You can warm it up later; you cannot undo somebody else's filter.

The shot list that produces a set you can use

A usable set comes out of three setups, not out of one afternoon of wandering around a flat. Write the list as counts per type so the creator can work through it and you can check the delivery against it.

1. Name three surfacesWrite them down: a kitchen worktop in daylight, a bathroom shelf, a table by a window. Naming the surface is what stops twenty frames coming from one corner of one room.
2. Set a count per typeFour in-hand, four action, four in place, four result, two lived-in, two with a person. Twenty frames covers a gallery and a static ad set with room spare.
3. Ask for vertical plus one squareShoot vertical as the primary and reframe one square per setup, rather than cropping everything afterwards and losing the edges of the good ones.
4. Specify the fileLargest size available, no filter, no crop, delivered as the original alongside any edited version the creator would rather you use.
5. Say what has to be legibleThe label, the dosage, the closure, the stitching: whichever detail a buyer squints at. One frame in the set should hold it sharp.
6. Review the set at thumbnail sizeLay all twenty out small. If four of them are interchangeable, you briefed the surface and forgot to brief the type.

Which parts of the index shoot stills well

Photography concentrates in a few categories. Home and food creators produce the most usable stills we see, partly because the subject sits on a surface and stays there, and partly because those creators already shoot stills for their own grids rather than treating a photo as a favour attached to a video.

Evidence matters more here than in video, and one field helps: 7,712 creators in the index have a portfolio link recorded against them, 32.1% of the total. A grid shows you what somebody posts. A portfolio shows you what they handed to a client, and that is the difference that tells you whether they can light a bottle. Follower count tells you nothing about it, and at a median of 1,706 followers most of the index is cheap enough to test with one paid set.

Licensing stills apart from footage

Photos and video are separate deliverables carrying separate licences, and folding them into one fee is how brands end up unable to use the stills in the place they most need them. Our planning estimate for five images begins around $175 for the smallest creators and $225 for the next band up. Treat those as budgeting figures and expect the creator's quote to differ.

Stills also travel further than clips. A product page, a marketplace listing, packaging, a print insert and a display in a shop are all uses that a social licence does not cover, and a marketplace listing in particular can outlive the campaign by years. Ask for a longer term on the images than on the video, name the territories, and say whether you may crop and add text. Where somebody identifiable is in frame, put the release in the same document instead of chasing it afterwards.

The rate calculator will model a photo set with the usage term attached, which is the version of the number worth arguing about internally before you open outreach.