One shoot, a phone and a plan. Come home with enough pictures for eight posts and a few in reserve, and the month's content is a matter of captions. Here is how to plan the day, what to shoot, and how to make it last.

Write the posts first

Before you pick up the phone, write the month's eight posts, using the five kinds: product, proof, process, people, point of view. Each post needs one picture. Now the shot list writes itself: three product shots, two of the making, one person, one detail, one of the place. Eight pictures, plus spares. Without the list, a photo day produces forty pictures of the same thing.

What to bring

A phone, daylight, a clean surface, the products and a person. A window at ten in the morning beats any lamp you own. A wooden table, a linen cloth or a plain wall is the whole set. Wipe the lens. That is the kit.

Shoot in sets

For each product take four frames: straight on, in use, a close detail, and in its place, on the shelf, in the bag, on the table. Same light, same background, so they belong together on the feed. A candle brand: the candle unlit, lit, the label close, and on a bedside table. Four frames, one product, a month of posts about it.

Write the posts first. The shot list writes itself.

Get the people

You, packing an order. The team, making. A customer, if one is there and says yes. Faces carry the account. If you are camera-shy, hands count: hands wrapping, hands pouring, hands holding the thing.

Shoot upright, and shoot ten seconds of video

Portrait frames fit posts and stories without cropping. While the set is up, film ten seconds of the product doing its thing: pouring, folding, lighting, cutting. That is next month's reel, and it cost nothing extra.

Make it last

Name and sort the files by post on the same day. The memory of which picture was for what fades in a week. Keep the spares in a folder marked reserve, for the week something falls through. Use the same table and the same window next month, and the months join up into one feed.

What CP3® does here

Brand Scan reads your website and Instagram into one brand profile, with your colours and your tone, so the drafts match what you shot. Branded Content drafts the month's posts with a visual direction, a caption direction and a date. You pair each draft with the picture from your day, approve it, and the month is on the calendar.