Michael Marquand Gets Imagery for E-Commerce Company Anecdote Candles

Most industries are feeling the strain of a pandemic whose second wave is very much here. Anything even remotely related to people needing to get up and go places — travel, live entertainment, etc. — is not in a great place at the moment. But not every commercial sector is barely keeping its head above water. Since most of us have to stay home for work (and are on our computers for said work), we’ve got plenty of time to shop online. Thus, e-commerce is doing a lot better than many of the industries mentioned above.

Michael Marquand’s work schedule tells a similar tale. Most of his recent commissions have been with e-comm-based enterprises, such as Anecdote Candles, for whom he completed an assignment in October. Michael believes companies that can sell merchandise online are in good enough shape to market near pre-COVID levels, whereas those that can’t are taking different approaches.

This is something I’ve just heard anecdotally from clients that have an e-comm based business. They seem to be weathering this crisis much better than others, and the two new clients I’ve gotten since COVID have been e-comm businesses whereas the non e-comm clients I had pre-COVID seem to be pulling back on marketing.

I haven’t seen any hard data on the e-comm boom, but it makes perfect sense to me. I’m personally buying everything I can online, and I’m spending more time at home than before. I think this is where the economy, and the way people buy things, was already headed but COVID has fast tracked it. 

For this assignment, Michael worked directly with AC’s founder, whose approach to the shoot made for an interesting inversion of the division of labor: instead of Michael asking for the client’s approval of a shot, it was the other way around.

Client was super nice. She was easy going to a degree that was almost comical. She had a very long shot list for the day and I had to tell her we might not get through it all, but we totally did.

She kept approving shots very quickly, and then I would have to convince her that the shot wasn’t quite there yet, and then it turned into this funny dynamic where she was waiting for me to approve each shot. Sort of the opposite of what I’m used to. 

The reason that the client had such a long shot list is because her goal wasn’t to get specific shots, she just wanted a huge library to work with for upcoming marketing pushes. Even though the work happened indoors, it was only two masked people at the facility, meaning things were safe and went smoothly for Michael.  

I saw a creative brief beforehand. It was very loose, and the client was very open to seeing what worked on set and changing things as needed. She was more concerned with getting a lot of content to play with than getting anything super specific. 

It was a one-day shoot at the client’s office/storage facility. It was a small space but there were only two of us. Neither of us had symptoms, and we wore masks the whole time.

See more of Michael’s work at marquandphoto.com.

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