Guide: how to plan your personal brand photoshoot
So, you want a bunch of photos of yourself that you can use, either on LinkedIn, your socials, your website, your project documents and more? I can relate.
Being someone who’s worked in marketing for over 11 years, I have always understood the importance of networking and promoting a personal brand both offline and online; but one of the things I had never got round to, really - apart from a cheeky photoshoot at work, is creating personal brand images.
And that’s where Carmen (Gondard) came in. A freelance photographer who’s been capturing content for small businesses, designers, shop owners and others freelancers for six years.
I spotted her work through a friend and I thought her work was beautiful, though not exactly the style I was dreaming for my brand. Nevertheless, I pitched her my idea, and once we started brainstorming, I was sure she would do a great job of bringing my vision to life. I wasn’t wrong.
I found working with her so helpful, fun and creative, I wanted her to extend these tips for you and for you to e-meet her, if this is something you are interested in planning for yourself.
So without further ado, here is an official guide to creating your personal brand photoshoot, by myself and Carmen. Just like in the magazine’s the initials of the writer will show whose advice it is.Carmen (CG) Freelance Photographer and Kyomi (KW) Marketer and Founder of the WADED School of Marketing:
3 reasons you should invest in a personal brand photoshoot
“Personal branding refers to the process of establishing your public persona for your target audience. It involves carefully and accurately communicating your values, beliefs, goals, and purpose.” - Phonak Inner Circle Community
(KW) When it comes to brand building, we all know imagery is one of the most important things to consider. As the Phonak quote states above, it helps to showcase who you are to your community - meaning your values, beliefs, goals, and purpose. And thus, the benefits of a personal brand photoshoot are simple:
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1 — It connects you with your dream clients
By sharing your brand story visually, it helps people identify with you, which makes you more appealing to future clients that are in your target audience.
2 — It helps you build trust with your community
Showing how you are, how you work and what are the values and vision for your brand.
3 — It brings to life you and your brand
By having ready to go on-brand images you never have to worry about which photos post and try to match, meaning you can have visual brand consistency across all places, from social media to press articles!
7 tips on what to prepare for your personal brand shoot
That said, here’s some advice that you can consider before booking a photoshoot session, having all of these thing prepared will help you to achieve your dream photos:
1 — Think about your goal
(CG) First you want to know what is the idea of your photo shoot, how you want to be perceived and which will be the main element of the photo shoot: maybe it’s to show your work space and work tools, to share your lifestyle, or to share your values and your aesthetics. Think about the message you want to express and it'll be so much easier to plan all the things!
(KW) for my shoot I didn’t know exactly what the set up would be but I had some vague ideas, it was really cool that Carmen made suggestions, and in the end, we decided her house would be the best location. She has a gorgeous room with furniture you would expect from a photographer, which made things easy for me. She also ordered me a background colour that I wanted for me and just added it onto my invoice. (meaning she vetted the supplier etc)
2 — Think also about where you are going to use the photos
(CG) So you can specifically plan poses and set ups that work perfectly for it. Are they for your website, social media, which are the main channels and what angles and poses you need to suit that?
3 — Incorporate your personal style
(CG) Which clothes and accessories do you usually feel comfortable with and express you the most? Between 2-3 outfits it is perfect to have a variety of photos.
4 — Think about your brand's colours and shapes
(CG) By adding this into your photoshoot it will add dimension and a better feeling of who you are and create brand recognition easily.
(KW) so for my shoot I always had a vision of boxes in my brand colour, the idea was for them to represent the ABC building/learning blocks we have when we are younger, as ultimately, I wanted WADED to be a brand about education.
Thanks to a Facebook group, I came across a Berlin local carpenter and artist called Andrew, who was able to create and customise plinths for me for the shoot. See here > artistcarpenter.berlin. I bought mine but you can also rent so I recommend checking him out!
5 — Search for inspiration of Pinterest
(CG) Having all this in mind, you can create a Mood Board on Pinterest and add the color palette of your brand, clothes, accessories, make up and hair references, elements and everything that inspires you and relates to your business, poses you would like to try that express your personality and location ideas.
(KW) For my shoot Carmen and I had a shared Pinterest board. This was great for me to dump all of my ideas, but she also brought so many cool ideas, and in the end uploaded more content than me! The big benefit of this was that we both had a very clear idea of what this would look like by the time it came to shooting, so expectations were set and shooting could be focused.
6—Create a shoot list
(CG) After you have collected all the inspiration you can do a shoot list with the poses you want to do, and which outfit and accessories goes on each one. Also you can think about which props you can add (laptop, phone, coffee mug or any other accessory that adds to your brand story)
(KW) What I really found useful at this stage is that Carmen added poses and expressions to the mood board which I could copy, so I didn’t feel so awkward. Taking pictures doesn’t come very naturally to me, so this guidance was incredibly helpful.
7—Have fun!
(CG) This is my last piece of advice, all of this planning helps to get your dream vision photos and all the process before and during your photoshoot you should have fun and let your true personality shine!
Image cred: @carmengondard
We hope you found this guide useful!
If you are Berlin/Germany based and want to do shoot with Carmen, send a DM to her on Instagram at @carmengondard