How to Plan a Personal Branding Shoot for Photographers

A personal branding shoot for photographers goes well beyond a headshot. It’s a short, planned session that leaves you with a library of pictures of yourself: working, with your kit, in your own space, plus a few simple portraits. Get it right and those images will supply your website and social accounts, as well as your local listings, for a year or longer.

The tricky part is that the roles flip. You’re used to giving directions. This time you’re the subject and someone else holds the camera, which is exactly why you need a plan.

What should you decide before you plan anything?

Answer three questions, in this order.

1. Where will the images go? Think website header, About page, Google Business Profile, Instagram, a printed brochure, a press kit. Each one needs different shapes and crops.
2. Who are you talking to? A family photographer has to come across as warm and trustworthy to parents. A commercial photographer has to look organised and professional to marketing managers.
3. Which three words should the pictures say about you? Calm, creative, reliable, for instance. Write them down and hand them to your photographer.

If your answers feel vague, set aside an hour to look at the personal sites of photographers you admire in your genre. Note what you’d borrow and what you’d steer clear of.

How do you build a shot list for your own shoot?

Without a shot list, the day slides into fifty portraits that all look the same. Go for variety across a few categories.

Number the list and mark your five must-haves. Then if time runs out, you still go home with what you need.

Where should you shoot?

One or two places. Not five. Every move between locations eats into the session and hardly ever makes the pictures better.

Your studio or workspace shows how you work, and you control everything in it. Tidy it first, and clear away the clutter you’ve stopped seeing.

A signature location suits you if you shoot weddings, families or outdoor portraits. That could be a venue or a beach, a woodland path, or a town centre where you often work.

A neutral backdrop keeps the focus on you and gives you clean images for press and directories.

Check the light at the time of day you’ll be shooting, and have a plan for rain. If the location is private or has rules about commercial photography, get permission. Most venues will say yes, but ask early.

What should you wear?

Wear what you’d wear on a working day, just a little sharper. Clients meet you in clothes you can work in, and your pictures should look like that person. A stranger in a blazer won’t help anyone.

• Bring two or three outfits: one you’d happily wear on a shoot, and one smarter option.
• Go for solid colours that suit your brand palette and your skin tone. Bold patterns and small logos tend to pull the eye.
• Check you can move. If you can’t crouch or reach in it, you’ll look stiff.
• Sort the details: ironed clothes, tidy hair, clean shoes, and anything you’d normally carry, such as a branded lanyard.

Which props and kit should you bring?

Bring your own working kit, not a borrowed set. Clean the camera body, check the lens for dust, and take the bag you really use.

Keep props to a minimum beyond that, and make each one mean something. A printed album works, or a framed print, a notebook, a coffee. For each one, ask yourself whether a viewer would read it as part of your job. If they wouldn’t, leave it at home.

If you’ll be photographed holding a camera, decide in advance if you’re posing with it or actually shooting. Both work. The second needs a real subject, though, like an assistant or a friend, or your own work up on the screen.

How do you direct another photographer?

Most photographers find this the hardest part, and it’s the part that makes or breaks the shoot. Your job is to lead the vision while keeping your hands off the camera.

• Send a mood board of five to ten reference images, including portraits you like and ones you don’t.
• Share your three words. They give the photographer a test to apply to every frame.
• Go through the shot list together before you start, so you both know the priorities.
• Be specific, not controlling. Telling them you like the light from the left helps far more than telling them where to stand.
• Look at a few frames early on, then let them get on with it. Checking every few minutes ruins your expression.

If you’d prefer to hand over the creative organising, a studio that shoots brand portraits and a personal branding shoot for photographers can put the plan together with you and still keep to your look.

How do you agree usage and ownership?

Sort this out before the day, and put it in writing. According to GOV.UK, copyright in a photograph exists automatically from the moment it’s created, with no registration needed. So don’t assume you can use every image anywhere you like unless the agreement says you can.

Agree these points:

• Where and for how long you can use the images (website, social, print, press, advertising).
• If you can edit, crop or retouch them yourself.
• How many final images you’ll get, and in what sizes.
• Whether the photographer can use them in their own portfolio.

Think about the file sizes you need as well. Google, for example, asks for Business Profile photos that are in focus and well lit, without significant alterations, so you’ll want a clean version with no filter on it.

What happens after the shoot?

Make your selection fast, while the day is still fresh in your mind, and keep it to a small set that looks consistent instead of every frame you like. Put the strongest pictures where clients will see them first. That means your homepage and your About page, along with your Google listing. Spread the rest across social posts over several weeks.

If you’re working out how this fits into your wider promotion, our overview of marketing for photographers is a good place to start.

How we can help

Our team includes working photographers who know what it’s like to stand on the wrong side of the lens. Through our photography for photographers service we can plan and shoot a personal branding session shaped around your own style, then help you put the results to use across your site and profiles. We agree a clear brief, scope and fee with you before any work begins.

Sources

• GOV.UK: Copyright
• Google Business Profile Help: Manage your Business Profile photos and videos