I said in my last post that I would talk about some simple lighting techniques in the next post , but I'm putting that one off for a bit. I got really excited about a shoot I had this week and have decided to share the experience with you, especially those of you who are entrepreneurs or business owners. If you haven't done a personal branding session, I think you may find it fun and the finished product highly effective in building your brand.
So what is personal branding photography? It is exactly what it sounds like. It focuses on your personality, your products/services, your style, whatever message you're trying to convey, etc. It showcases what is unique to you.
For example, the shoot I did the other day was with Patrick Jones of Patrick Jones Baseball. Patrick is a hitting coach with a pretty impressive resume. He has been hosting a podcast about baseball for the past 5 years as well as giving private hitting lessons to not only young players, but a few MLB players have been spotted up in his batting cage in Milford, Ohio. Patrick also has a huge social media following. I would say that he has done very well building his brand.
The only thing he was really lacking were some professional photos so we set up a session last Friday and had some fun. We planned a simple shoot in the studio. I had thought about shooting up in his batting cage but decided against it as I really wanted some clean shots, controlled lighting and simple backgrounds. He showed up wearing an attractive sports hoodie with his logo which is red, black and white so I opted for a simple gray background for the first shots. I had also asked Patrick to bring along a baseball and bat as I wanted to incorporate them into some of the images. Patrick was super easy to work with and we had a lot of fun. I had set 2 hours aside for him but we got the pictures in 1 hour and 15 minutes. Honestly, it was probably one of the easiest photoshoots I've ever done.
In the end, the results were exactly what I wanted. After the initial editing we had 150 images to choose from which were shot against 3 different backgrounds: gray, white and a green screen. I'm not fond of shooting against green screens, but I do like having that added option for design purposes. We chose 10 different images with which to work. When choosing images for a branding package, it's important to keep in mind all the many ways and places they may be shared. Not all pictures look good cropped in a square for example, so if you plan on posting on Instagram, we want to choose the best images for that platform. What about editorial purposes. Is there a chance a magazine may want to publish one of the images? If so, they'll most probably want a rectangular crop and if it's full page, is there room on the image for type? Will the client be using them for advertising? Again, is there room for a logo/type. These things need to be kept in mind when choosing a package of images.
Personal branding sessions are as unique as each individual are built accordingly. Some sessions take place on location. Bakers belong in kitchens, hairdressers belong in salons, restauranteurs belong in their restaurant. You get the idea. From simple to extensive and everything in between, personal branding sessions are a strong collaboration between photographer and client and if you're my client, count on having fun!!
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