Everything You Need To Know To Rock Your Brand Photo Shoot!

I’m assuming if your here that you already understand the importance of a branding photo shoot – if not allow me to enlighten you with my blog post on 3 reasons you should have a branding photo shoot here.

It’s happened, you have booked the day for your branding photo shoot, congrats! Fast forward a few weeks & you have received your photos back & while they are beautiful & you look amazing (of course!) you quickly realize that you’re unable to use the photos in the ways you were intending to originally. Your Graphic Designer / Social Media Manager / Web Designer inform you that your photos simply aren’t optimized to be used for things like ads, website banners, social media content, blog post covers etc. Nightmare!

Worry not! With this guide you are sure to get the most out of your branded photo shoot investment!

P R I M O points to keep this in mind throughout the whole process— Your photographer is not thinking about how your photos will be used. They are focusing on the aesthetic of it all. That means YOU have to ensure that you get the most out of your investment of time & money!

1. These photos aren’t going to be hanging on someone’s white wall, or framed on the mantle, or at least that’s not their purpose. These photos are going to be used for your website, social media posts, advertisements, blog posts, etc. which means they will be viewed along with lots of other distracting elements around them such as text, objects, buttons, etc. Keep this in mind when choosing a wardrobe for your branding shoot & scouting locations for your branded shoot. These are the two biggest impact makers for your shots.

2. If you are intending to utilize these photos for any of the uses mentioned above you’re going to need to NOT be the subject of every photo. Your photographer is going to want to shoot you as the center of the photo, but this doesn’t work well for photos that will be used with text, or as banners, or other online marketing. Your graphic designer/web designer is going to need space to add text to the photo or to adjust to the sizes they need but if your dead center of every picture that doesn’t leave a whole lot of room for a call to action button, or a quote, or text of any kind!

What to Wear

You want your photos to be as timeless as possible! Brand photography is quite an investment of time & money. And as with any investment you want it to payoff for as long as possible. Most businesses do brand photography every 3-5 years so the items you choose to wear, the colors, even your hair style shouldn’t be overly trendy.

The clothes you choose to wear will be the first thing that communicates who you are to your audience & potential clientele. It’s the first representation of what your about & communicates instantly your vibe. So its incredibly important to not just copy cute outfits off of Pinterest but to actually put some intentionality behind the clothes you choose for your photo shoot day. What is your brand vibe? How can you communicate those things? Playing a simple word association game with your self will do wonders for this! For The Enlightened Studio, my brand vibe was: First & foremost: Professional — what portrays professionalism to me? a blazer. Second: Fun — what portrays fun but professional? a fun colored blazer. One whose color went with my branding but I didn’t try to match it exactly, instead I went with a complimentary color.

Avoid wearing the exact same color or shade as your main brand color. For every brand color palette you should have complimentary colors that accent & highlight your main brand color. Take, The Enlightened Studio, for example the main brand color is a deep blue, since I know I’m going to be using it for lots of backgrounds & typography in ads, social media posts, website pages, etc I intentionally stayed away from this color when choosing my outfits for photo shoot day.

Notice photo no.1 -> If mauve had been my main brand color, I would have tried to match it & this is what ends up happening. Here’s the problem:

1. Color clashing. Chances of you finding the exact color as your brand color & that color translating onto film & various computer screens is not likely & more of a headache then its worth!

2. Your main brand color is working against you! Rather than accentuating your photo & drawing eyes to it you would literally be blending it in with the background & basically camouflaging yourself rather than standing out in your photos. The literal exact opposite of what your branding photoshoot is supposed to do for you.

Where as if you look at photo number 2 because I wore a color that was complimentary to my main brand color. It draws the viewers eye to my photo. to my face. to me — then we connect & work happily ever after!

Struggling to decided on wardrobe colors? Take a look at your brand color palette — identify which is your main color(s) & strive to wear colors that are lighter shades — even pastels of your actual color palette. Wearing lighter shades is an easy way to ensure that your wardrobe wont be working against you for your shoot by wearing contrasting or opposing colors that don’t compliment your branded website, ad, social media profile etc.

Stay away from prints. —I know, but they’re fun! (okay, if you must but only 1 – & recognize that its going to require further planning on your part- more on this below in “Planning the day”)— Prints are busy, remember these photos aren’t going to be seen up against your blank, neutral colored wall, they will be viewed on a screen with pop ups & other photos & various types of typography & colors all competing for the viewers attention. If prints are you & they’re what you’re all about then choose one. This doesn’t mean take all your pictures in this one top — in fact, please DON’T do this— use that one piece with print in a couple of shots, not all of them, not even most of them, a couple that can be used as your social media profile images.

Does your brand have busy patterns, or elements? Then you should stick to solid color clothing.

Play with textures. Velvet & suede for example photographs beautifully, but keep in mind your brand board aesthetic here. Does the fabric go with your brand? I wouldn’t suggest to a head of a tech company to wear or use a lot of burlap or suede in their photo shoot ya feel?

 

 

Try your complete outfits on before hand & have someone take some shots of you in them. You don’t want to wait till the day of your shoot to realize that the white blouse you were so excited to wear is basically see through. Or finish with your whole shoot & realize that skirt that wasn’t lined shows every little lump & bump & a pair of Spanx would have gone a long way.

Jewelry

Remember when I mentioned going for that timeless look? Unfortunately jewelry styles are rarely timeless, just take a look back through your old facebook pics from 3 years ago. When it comes to your photoshoot, choose jewelry that is simple, timeless, pieces you would wear everyday. Easy trick here – look at those old social media photos from 3 years ago & pick out the pieces that would still be fashionable now. Sure a bold statement necklace can work with the right outfit but just know the bolder more statement-esque the piece is the more dated it will look more quickly.

Location

Choose settings without a busy background. Busy doesn’t necessarily mean people either. Look at the photo of the man in the diner below. It’s a great photo, gives off a vibe of I spend my time in swanky cool places, hanging with cool cats. And as a profile picture yeah its fab. But for your purposes of where & how your photos will be used this isn’t a great shot — & if your photoshoot is done & over with a bunch of shots like this then you didn’t get a great return on your investment.

Your photos from your branding shoot serve 2 purposes: 1. Get some great shots of you 2. Get some great shots of you that can be utilized over & over again across different platforms & for different content purposes. The colors in this busy background would have to match your branding or else they’ll clash. Not to mention the biggest downfall with this photo is because the background is so busy there no place to easily place text that would draw the viewers eye, instead any text would be competing with the subject matter of the photo.

YAASS GIRL!

Check out the photo of the girl. She chose a setting with a plan background so as not to distract the viewer to the main subject of the photo – HER. Not to mention notice all that lovely space to the left of her photo, this is what your photographer needs to keep in mind. Your graphic designer (or you if your the wearer of many hats in your business) will need that kind of what is called “negative space” (which is a fancy term used to describe space that is intentionally unused or left blank in an art piece).

Horizontal photos with the subject to either the far left or the far right will be your graphic designer + web designer + social media manager’s best friend because in that space they can put a call to action, a quote, a button, the title of your course, e book, or blog post such as what I created in this example. This is something photographers don’t typically think about because their goal is to produce beautiful photos, they aren’t usually thinking about the use of them once they’ve been handed over so you may find yourself reminding your photographer throughout your shoot,

• horizontal photos are my friend (with ample space to the left or right of me)

• dont put me in the center of all the photos (or even most of them honestly)

• vertical shots, please leave space above my head, to the left or right of me.

Look around your space for some non traditional areas you could take some more candid shots. You don’t need to take all your photos at your desk.

Props

Sassy coffee mug, fun pair of sunglasses, a hat, white fluffy rug, crystals, fresh cut flowers, chalk board or signage, candles — if it goes with your brand vibe & color palette use it! This is your chance to show off the authentic you that your customers will connect with, think: “I see a teapot on her desk- she must be a tea drinker, I love tea! She gets me! I want to work with her!” In my photo shoot I featured items I use everyday from yes my tea pot, to my incense burner! Check out my Buddha head essential oil diffuser, I wouldn’t usually think of a diffuser as a necessary prop for a branding photo shoot but it’s one of my favorite pieces in my office (this little guy runs all day every day) and it goes with my brand vibe, my niche & my my color scheme + my photographer was pretty obsessed with it too – how could you not be?!

Planning Outfits with Locations

Scouting your locations & even snapping photos of them on a regular day will be worth it. Plan which outfits you’ll wear in which locations ahead of time. If its a busier location — as in there will most likely be people in the backgrounds of your photos or the setting itself is busy then plan to wear a solid color blouse or dress, keep it simpler.

Im a hat wearer, my decorative hat wall in my house is my favorite so it was important to me that I wear a hat in some of my more casual photos. Sure I could have worn my hat in the photos I took in my office but instead I used my office space for my more professional outfit selections & used the hat outfit for my more casual porch & outdoor photos.

Custom Stock Photos

Consider your needs for stock photos, and if you’re able to create some that are perfectly curated to your brand during your shoot. Most photographers are fine with a few shots of these especially if you have done the work of pre mapping out your flat lay. Head over to pinterest for some inspo by searching “styled desk photography”. I obviously didn’t go for the typical styled desk shot but photos of crystals & candles & malas all with a simple background that went with my brand vibe were hard to come by especially with a similar aesthetic since they were coming from different photographers. Below are some of the shots I got to use as custom stock photos.

Or some stock photos like the ones below where again you aren’t necessarily the subject matter of each photo but instead your giving a peak behind the senes & giving your audience a chance to feel like they know you a little bit better.

Free downloadable shot list for your photographer, because when your in the moment with all the excitement its easy to lose track of exactly which shots you’ve gotten & how many & which ones your still missing. This shot list is sure to keep you on track!

Poses & Positioning:

The need for Horizontal Photos with negative space to the left, right & above the subject. Photographers tend to have the subject of their photos in the center, which doesn’t really work well for internet marketing.

The need for photos to be on blank walls & even backdrops where words can easily be added.

Have F U N !

Granted it helps if your photographer is muy hilarious & someone you can have fun with — but here’s a secret, it ain’t coffee in that mug — fun fact I’m actually only a tea drinker, the only coffee I do enjoy drinking is Dominican & i wasn’t drinking either one of those * wink wink.

Do what ya gotta do to loosen up. Expect that you’ll be nervous so you can plan for it. Get a good nights rest then the next morning do what you have to do to feel your best. For me that meant meditating, tapping, & enjoying my morning Chai on my porch. As soon as my photographer arrived we cheers our mimosas, turned on some music & had fun.

Check out this interesting little piece from Buzzfeed wherein a photographer photographed his friends after 1, 2, & 3 glasses of wine to document the effects over time in front of a camera. Notice that in basically all the subjects their 2nd & 3rd photos they look more attractive, fun, & someone you’d want to know — or work with *wink wink.

Bonus Tip

For your photos to not look like they were ALL taken on the same day. Change up your hair style, lipstick & jewelry between outfit changes.

shot list:

flat lay of objects & props, work space with & with out you in it, custom stock photos that fit perfectly with your brand vibe.

Practice your best smile with selfies before hand.