What is Personal Branding Photography exactly?

It is almost impossible for a business not to have some kind of web presence these days.

Be it as a listing on google, a business page on Facebook or a profile page on LinkedIn.

It is no different for and individual or a multi-national company. And in my view with the market place changing so rapidly we are going to see more businesses on-line.

According to Wikipedia your personal brand “is an ongoing process of developing and maintaining a reputation and impression”.

So in effect your personal brand photography is how others see you.

Ask a friend to describe you - that’s your personal brand. It is this that makes you unique, and as we know, it is your uniqueness that is going to make you stand out in the ever more competitive market place.

The function of Personal brand photography is to highlight these differences and qualities in a succinct and visually attractive way. A casual viewer should be able to look at a photograph that represents your personal brand and instantly be able to answer the following four questions:

• What you do?

• How do you do it?

• Who do you do it for?

• How will that help me?

OK so that’s a lot to ask of one photograph, what do I do?

Well this is where the essence of personal branding photography lies.

Your brand is built up by informing your audience/customers over a period of time. And you use social media outlets such as Facebook and Instagram to do this.

However, you still have your main website, whereby people can get to know you in depth and where you have your sales funnel. But this is fed by regular posting on social media.

This can be a mix of different styles of media:

1. Photographs of your product or service

2. Behind the scenes photographs or video

3. Flat-lays showing the creation of your product

4. Interactions with customers

5. Personal snippets

The list goes on!

So your personal brand is linked to your public profile, as I said earlier it is how your audience (customers) views or understands you.

GETTING THE BALL ROLLING WITH PERSONAL BRAND PHOTOGRAPHY

Here are the 5 things I discuss with my clients in our initial phone conversation or meeting.

The idea of this phone conversation is to establish what is needed but also to help clarify the client’s message or brand.

• To help start visualising the shoot I normally start by asking the simple question –

  “Do you see these images as Light and Modern or Dark and Classic?"

  These suggestions are only intended to be the start of a discussion, but it immediately helps me in planning the shoot. For example take the image shown above. It was shot for Parsons Bakers and was used on the home page of their website. The client is an established company going back nearly 100 years. And when I asked them this question they replied - dark and classic.

It really helped me framework the rest of the shoot. Incidentally this campaign was shot using natural light, so Ihad to seek out images to fill the brief. I couldn’t just change the exposure/feel with my flash lights as I normally do.

• Next, I will ask the name of the business.

  If it’s a personal brand shoot this may well be someone’s name. In which case this will tend to steer me into thinking about really getting across their personality and values.

  If it’s a business name I can be more generic with my photographs, but still bringing out the value points of that name.

  Now let's get a bit more in depth, the next three tips will really help in bringing the shoot/campaign together.

• Brand Colours are normally based on one or two colours. There is lots of information available on the internet about the psychology of colour and also great references for picking the best colour combinations. For example Colourzilla is a great tool that can operate from your browser and Coolors is a resource that can help you pick and match colours.

  Once you have decided on your palette write down the Pantone, or similar, reference number - to retain consistency.

  As a Brand Photographer, I like to include the brand colour in as many photos as I can. Extra Brownie points for including any accent colours, as this will really look good in the website design.

  For example lets say the main brand colour is a dark blue but they accent it with vivid orange in the logo. I will then try and include that shade of orange in as many places as possible - mugs, pens, stationery, ties that people are wearing, the list is endless.

  But on the finished website it will make the images pop.

• Put a Mood Board together – a collection of images that can help evoke the style of your brand.

  I always used to do this for fashion shoots and it really helps make sure that everyone is sharing the same vision. Pinterest (and others) is great for this.

  As well as being a good platform for sharing ideas, it is also really handy for storing ideas. Set up your own personal page and then board and use it to keep all your ideas nicely filed in one place. Great for all types of photography, whenever you see an image you like, scroll over it and if the “P” symbol for Pinterest comes up click on the photo and it will be saved to your board.

• Choose a Location.

  A crucial part of how your brand is going to be portrayed and time spent on getting this right will really pay dividends.

  If you are on a budget and can’t find the right location have a look at Airbnb for properties. You might be able to come to some agreement with the rental owner to shoot in the down-time between bookings. or even do an exchange where you photograph the location in exchange for the cost of the rental.

There you go, 5 easy to action tips and whether your commissioning a personal brand photoshoot or you are the photographer on a shoot. I hope you have found this useful. Please let me know how you get on in the comments below.

It will be great to see your results.