STORYTELLING THROUGH BRAND PHOTOGRAPHY

AND HOW CAN YOU USE IT FOR YOUR BUSINESS 

With Personal Branding Photography, we focus not only on promoting people and products, but also the lifestyles concepts, and ideas that make your business stand out in today’s competitive modern marketplace. It’s about visually telling a story and creating a narrative that can help to create a world in which your brand exists. We provide the visual counterpart to your brand allowing for greater creative freedom to articulate your brand’s story. 

Brand photography is for entrepreneurs, bloggers, freelancers, and any other industry professionals whose branding calls for an all-encompassing visual package that goes beyond capturing each individual. These sessions visually support your entire professional world including product marketing and business branding. With personal brand photography, we focus not only on promoting people and products, but also the lifestyles concepts, and ideas that make your business stand out in today’s competitive modern marketplace. We provide the visual counterpart to your brand allowing for greater creative freedom to articulate what you do and how you do it.

Our personal portraits are perfect for publications, websites, blogs, social media, calendars, annual reports, and any other visual marketing materials you need to promote you, your business, and your people. Whether you are looking to promote yourself, a specific aspect of your work, or both, our personal brand photography sessions provide the flexibility and customization for us to collaborate and craft the ideal photo collection to meet all your professional photography needs.

This was a recent on-location photography shoot I did with my clients David and Dima. What kind of tone or mood do you feel is set by this kind of session? What story do you think is being told? 

HOW TO PREPARE FOR YOUR BRAND PHOTO SESSION

Photography is by far one of the most powerful brand assets you can invest in for your business. Whether you do business online, offline, or some balance in between, the visual identity you create for your business sets the tone and mood for the experience your clients will have with your business. 

Think about all the various ways imagery is used in business: on websites, business cards, print stationery, ads and marketing materials, social media, video marketing, email marketing (I think you get my point…) . Needless to say, it’s everywhere.

When you think about the brands you love the most, there will always be a specific visual association you have. It’s that visual association that we first connect to that business and establishes our initial relationship with a brand. But even more importantly, that visual association is consistent across all those marketing avenues we listed above.

Consistency is key in building a strong, recognizable brand, and photography plays a major part in that. 

WHERE TO START

When it comes to styling your branded photo session, we need to keep these key elements in mind:

What is the ideal visual experience you want to create for your ideal clientele? 

How can we recreate that experience through photography?

To help your photographer understand the world in which your brand exists and the experience you want to create, a great place to start is on Pinterest. Create a brand board by collecting images, colors, graphics, and anything else that speaks to the tone and mood of your brand. Your photographer will be able to identify these common trends amongst your pinned images and begin to craft a narrative of images to style your shoot with. 

WHERE WILL YOU USE YOUR PHOTOS

After creating your inspiration board, your next step is to create a list of all the various areas you will be using your images.

This list, along with your inspiration images, will help your photographer to know not only how to style your session, but what angles and shots need to be taken in order to meet your list of photo uses. This is especially key if you are taking photos for online media or website design where you need lots of wider images instead of taller vertical shots.

HERE ARE JUST A FEW PLACES TO HELP YOU START YOUR OWN PHOTO LIST: 

HAIR + MAKEUP

At this point, we have your inspiration images, list of shots, styled wardrobe and you are just about ready for your shoot. The final piece of the puzzle is professional hair and makeup.

Photoshop is amazing but it’s abilities only go so far. But, you know what can, professional hair and makeup. It may seem like an unnecessary add-on, but the professional polished look that a professional stylist can give you will not only make you look your best but feel your best and that resonates through your final photos. And I promise you, it will be worth every penny. .

WHAT TO WEAR

Now that you have your list of photo uses as well as inspirational shots, next comes the styling.

Think about the colors you pulled in your inspiration board, or even more appropriately, your current branding. If your branded colors are more neutral and dark, wearing hot pink or sparkly pieces might not fit very well. Yes, teal might look lovely on you, but if your brand is more red and beige, your photos won’t flow well into the world of your business.

The same goes for fancy patterns or for us ladies, big flashy pieces of jewelry. Anita has an excellent post on how to prepare your wardrobe for your photoshoot for both men and women that you do not want to miss.