We are going back to my roots today where I feel nice and right at home, behind the camera. If you are in the process of planning a branding photography session, this is meant to help you simplify that process. Or if you’ve been super intimidated by hiring a branding photography, even though you know you need one, then this will hopefully bring your mind ease because it gives you some idea of what to expect when working with one.

What is brand photography?

First thing’s first though – let’s discuss what exactly brand photography is. Brand photography is a visual representation of your brand. Brand photography is a visual representation of your brand. We are taking all of your values, your mission, your client experience, your colors, your brand descriptors…all of that. We’re taking all those things and putting them into a visual. Now, if this sounds intimidating to you, please don’t worry. It is not YOUR job to make these visuals happen, it’s the photographer’s! But the tips in this episode will help you help them make the best of the session and give you exactly what you need.

Second thing’s second – brand photography is NOT a headshot session. Sure, headshots can be included, but brand photography pushes passed the standard headshot to develop a storyline that potential customers and clients can buy into. Now that we set the foundation, let’s jump in, shall we?

Setting Goals

The first thing we are going to talk about is setting goals for the session. I set goals for everything…for the year, for the month, for the week, for myself, for my husband, for my kids. So a branding photography session is no different. Without goals, we have no direction, and ultimately, these branding images should be utilized across all your marketing efforts, like your website, your social media, your blog, and any email marketing you do. So before we even start the planning of the session, let’s plan your goals. A good example of this is—if these images are supposed to last you for six months and within the next six months you are wanting to start your email list or revive an old email list you used to utilize, then that is something to tell your photographer because that will let him/her know that we need to have some horizontal images for you to use in your email newsletters. If you’re looking to go full speed ahead in your social media marketing, specifically on Instagram, then that will tell your photographer you need mostly vertical images. If you’re looking to start a Shopify or e-commerce shop and you need a horizontal image with a bunch of negative space to put a text overlay in Canva, then that would be good for your photographer to know. So gather that short list of specific goals and pass them along to your photographer so that he/she can tailor their shooting to those needs.

Speaking of goals, let’s take a quick break for an affiliate commercial for PowerSheets, my favorite goal planning resource!

Curating a Shot List

Now that we have goals, it is much easier to be more specific when we are creating a shot list. Creating a quality shot list will take some time and thought. Like we mentioned before, the goal with any branding session is to harness the brand and display visual representations of it. In order to do this, sometimes thinking outside of the box is necessary. I usually think in terms of “person shots” and “prop shots.” Person shots are the ones that either you and/or a model will be in. Prop shots, on the other hand, will be shots with JUST a prop or product in it. One thing I love to do is source some shot ideas from your audience—what do they think of when they think of your brand? This is a great exercise, both in terms of nailing down specific shots, but also to ensure your current messaging is coming across correctly and adequately.

Let’s go through some questions that you can ask yourself as you start to brainstorm a shot list for your session:

1. Which parts of my client experience are special to me and my brand/business?
   • How can I showcase those visually?
     • Example: When I was a wedding photographer, I gave all my brides an ARHP Bridal Guide. So I could have taken prop shots of that accompanied with florals to elevate the visual.
     • One of my branding photography clients is a Pilates studio owner. It was her goal from the start of her studio to create a welcoming atmosphere for all of her students, regardless of whether it was their first time doing Pilates or 500th time doing Pilates. So during one of her branding sessions, we did a series of photos that documented every step of participating in a class at Pilates Barre Lex. We literally broke it down to…walking in the door, putting your items in a bin, slipping off shoes, putting on grippy socks, adjusting your springs and shoulder blocks, beginning class, a water break, wiping down the reformer at the conclusion of the class. So a new client would know EXACTLY what to expect, no surprises. She now has that on her social media so potential students who are interested in joining her studio can feel welcome and confident when coming into the studio for the first time.
2. The next question you can ask is—Do I have any launches approaching for which I need marketing materials? A launch can be anything from a new service or re-launching services that you ALREADY offer. That’s okay too. Think through what imagery you might need for those launches. What is the new service offering about and how can we illustrate that for your audience? What is the new course or podcast or product or resource about? 
   • One of my clients is an accountant. She was launching a course about write offs for business owners. As I was looking through the course there was some clip art and stock images used throughout the slides. Instead of using clip art or stock images, we took some images to use specifically for certain parts of that course. Like there was a section about what you could write off for travel and I had her bring her suitcase as a prop and photographed her walking out the door with it as if she were on her way to a trip.
3. Another question is…are you planning any educational blog posts for your audience? If so, what types of visuals are necessary to accompany those educational posts?
   • My brain always works better with examples, so even if you’re sick of them, you’re still gonna get them. Let’s say you are a flower farmer and you are doing some educational blog posts surrounding how to plant the tubers that you are currently selling…I would encourage you to add a sequence of you actually planting the tuber step-by-step, so that we could illustrate that to your audience within that blog post.
   • Now, if this all sounds too specific, I can promise you it’s not. The images that come from each of these brainstorming questions, should…if your brand is consistent…be able to be used in multiple places. So these tuber planting images aren’t only going to be used on your blog; they’re also going to be used on your social as well.
4. Alright, next question: What are my brand identifiers? How can I incorporate those into my session? We will touch more on brand identifiers in just a second, so let me circle back to this one.
5. Finally, as you brainstorm your shot list, I want you to pretend you are telling a story with only visuals and ask yourself a series of “Who am I?” questions.
   • Who am I as a business owner?
   • Who am I as a [insert your job title here – photographer, flower farmer, accountant, Pilates studio owner]?
   • Who am I as a spouse?
   • Who am I as a mom?
   • Who am I as a _____________ (something unique to you and your brand)?

Answering these questions will start to tell the story of you, your life, your brand, and your business. You do not have to use every single one of these roles as a story line, but those should get your juices flowing to start!

We will touch more on locations in a bit, but as you are curating your shot list, I want you to start to think of the setting of your shoot. If you are doing multiple locations or multiple spots within one location, start to segment the shot list into locations or areas. This will make it easier as we progress in the process to stay organized and ensure that we are capturing everything at the right time.

Brand Identifiers

As promised, let’s jump into brand identifiers. Brand identifiers are the topics to which your audience/ideal client is extremely responsive. These are typically personal things, like your pets or your hobbies. It can be likes, dislikes, interests or hobbies, colors, pets, family or kids, pre-photography background, travel, etc.

If you are having difficulty determining your brand identifiers, I suggest you take the time to sit down, write out a LONG list of all the different possible brand identifiers based off of different areas of your life (remember those “Who are you…” questions?). Start posting about items on that list and gauge which ones your audience interacts with the most! Then you will know which to incorporate into your branding session.

One brand identifier I can use from my own business is the fact that I used to be an English teacher. I allude to that often. This gives me two image ideas to be able to take this idea and convert it into a visual image. First, I could sit on a couch reading a favorite book (perhaps this is a business book I plan to write a blog post about). Or I could do what I call a “prop shot” and photography a stack of books to use as a filler image for hygiene content on my social media. 

Selecting Outfits

Next up—selecting outfits! When selecting outfits for a branding session, it can be difficult to find a place to start. Fret no more! It is actually much simpler than it initially seems once a few guidelines are set in place to guide the selection!

First and foremost, wear your brand colors (or variations of your brand colors)! This will keep your brand and marketing appearance consistent on your social media, website, blog, digital marketing, wherever you use your images. If I am looking at your social media for the first time, I should be able to get a general idea of the colors of your brand. If not, you need a new branding session!

Once concern I often hear is that clients don’t have outfits in their brand colors. If this is the case for you, I suggest either a self-pampering shopping trip OR dressing in neutrals–white, beige, and/or light pastels! As your brand and business continues to grow, however, you will be able to reuse these outfits for other occasions as well, such as networking events, expos, or conferences, so I would consider it a business expense. Actually, don’t really take my word for that—go talk to my accountant client, Brittney Suttle with Knies & Co. She would be able to tell you if that’s a write off or not…no, seriously, I am going to link her information in the show notes!

Next, be sure to think through each ENTIRE outfit. I am talking the top AND bottom, the dress, the cardigan, the shoes, the accessories, like earrings, necklace, bracelets, watch, your hairstyle. I often will have my clients create layered outfits, so we can take a cardigan off and vary the outfit for the shot to get a bit more variety. I also encourage my clients to start out with hair down and bring a couple clips or hair ties to be able to vary hairstyle throughout the session based on the shot list.

This may sound nitpicky, BUT coordinate your outfits with the locations you’ll be shooting in. One of my clients is a bridal hairstylist. She wanted to showcase what she did outside of hair, like making charcuterie boards or lounging with her pups. So when she was in a comfortable spot, like her bed/couch, she wore a comfy sweater/shirt and leggings/jeans. When she was in her studio, like she would be for a bridal trial or for a wedding day, she was wearing what she would actually wear during a trial or wedding day, which was an all-black jump suit. This may sound obvious, but having it planned out in advance, it is so much easier to execute and not feel disorganized or rushed on the day of the shoot. Overall, once the shot list is finalized, it can be easier to narrow down outfit selection as well because you know what vibes you will be going for!

Determining Location

Once the shot list comes together, the rest begins to fall into place, including location selection. As you answer the “Who are you…” questions from earlier, places will naturally come to mind. For example, if you want a lot of shots with your son or daughter playing with his or her favorite toys, you will likely want to make home one of your locations.

It seems pretty simple, but I often get questions about location. One of those questions is, “How many locations should I have?” This depends on the session and the photographer conducting your session. I say generally three locations can encompass a complete representation of who you are as a person, photographer, spouse, parent, traveler, etc. However, I have conducted an entire five-hour session in one location and never ran out of places to shoot! Keep in mind that a “location” doesn’t have to be a physical address change. It can simply be “kitchen,” “office,” and “living room” all within one house.

The next concern I often hear is: “My home office is hideous, what should I do?” Please don’t fret if that’s the case for you. That’s okay! There are several good options to book a session location. Your photographer may have a studio where you all can shoot, so be sure to ask them first. You can also look at Airbnb for location options. Often times a lot of those spaces are decorated really minimally which minimizes distractions in your photos. I will warn you, however, that some locations do not allow “commercial shoots,” which is technically what a branding session or any session where there is an exchange for time for money. So just to be safe, I would ask the host prior to assuming a session would be allowed. Home Studio List is another great option. This is essentially Airbnb for content creation. You are able to rent spaces by the hour that are curated and decorated already. I have had some colleagues have really great success with this site! It’s not super new, but definitely in a season of rapid expansion, so even if there isn’t a space immediately near you now, there may be in a few months! Finally, Peerspace is a similar site with the same rent-by-the-hour concept. Both of these options are great because you don’t have to worry about them not allowing commercial photography, since that’s literally what they’re intended for.

Finally, if there is a way to embed a bit of business strategy into your location selection, I would love that for you. For example, if you are a wedding vendor, you could contact a venue where you’d like to work to see if they’d be willing to allow you to have part of your session there. You would get great images at a venue where you’d like to work, have images showing you are familiar with that location for potential clients, and possibly have the opportunity to chat with the owner or manager to network and introduce yourself! Ah, I love a good strategy.

Choosing Props

Okay, final stretch. The last planning item I want to address is props! Similar to locations, they begin to fall into place once you start telling the story of you, your brand, and your business! The key here is to make it as comprehensive of a list as possible! Below are a few prop pointers that you may have not previously considered.

First, think through each frame. Let’s pretend you are a wedding photographer. If you plan to do a behind-the-scenes shot of you styling a flat lay, then you need all the flat lay supplies, like an invitation suite, florals, shoes, vow books, etc. Write each of those pieces down so that nothing is forgotten, especially if you will be traveling to a shoot location. If you are celebrating a business anniversary and want to have a gold balloon with the anniversary number on it…make sure that’s on the list, to order and to pack!

Second, each and every prop should be on brand. That means color and style! For example, if you are using postcards in your session to showcase your love of travel, find ones that are your brand colors. If you are a prior teacher like me and going to do that stack of books to represent lifelong learning, pick books that are in your brand colors. It seems silly and minimal, but it will really bring together the consistency of your final gallery.

If you decided that your home office is out, but you are still shooting “office” shots (like writing in your planner, working behind your laptop, etc.), make sure you have all those supplies gathered. It is the worst when you get to a session location and forgot one integral part of your normal set up! So even if this is a bag you often pack, please just make a list and check each individual prop off as you pack it. You can never be too prepared.

Simple and organized is always better than cluttered. People tend to overcrowd or clutter spaces because they don’t want to leave anything out…but telling small, clear bits of a story at a time makes those pieces more digestible and memorable.

Wrapping It Up in a Branding Bow

You have now set goals, created your shot list, defined your brand identifiers, selected outfits, determined locations, and made your prop list. After all those steps are completed, you are ready for your branding photography session to bring your brand from concept to visual representation. If you are overwhelmed by this prep list, please realize that the execution of this list takes place typically over a one to three month timeframe. It is very manageable and as you do it more often, you will begin to start thinking of shots for the next session before it’s even time to start planning!

Also, remember that you are the client. Your photographer is there to help you succeed along the way. Each of my clients receive a questionnaire that asks them their goals, their values, their colors, etc. so that I can play a heavy role in planning their shot list and overall session. Also know that not every brand photographer is the same, so if their system is different than mine, that’s okay! Different strategies can all yield great results!

If you are looking for a brand photographer, I know a good one! No seriously! If you feel like we would be a good fit, I am east-coast based, and willing to travel. I have captured brands across many industries from wedding vendors to construction companies to accountants to fitness instructors. My strategies work across all those industries because they are based on my immense branding research, not just around marketing trends of the moment. So let’s update those brand visuals and get the next chapter of your story started!

As always, I hope this was helpful as you build your brand and your business. Keep dreaming, keep creating, and remember: your brand is your story. Let’s tell it together.

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Season 1, Episode 7: Planning Your Branding Session: Simplifying the Process for Entrepreneurs
Brand Photography Services