Branding Photography: Up Your Game
- Guest blog by Ken Hughes
We live in such a visual world today, one where we instantly judge based on image alone. Our fingers swipe along our Facebook or Instagram feeds, only stopping when an image speaks to us. We buy with our eyes, from homes to online fashion, from holiday apartments on AirBnB to even swiping left or right on dating apps based on image alone. We are no longer a text-dominant society, one where someone might read all about your brand or business. Shortened attention spans and a desire for instant means that our modern, digitally saturated brains look for a shortcut.
Ditch the old headshot!
I am regularly horrified at just how little effort and thought business owners put into how their brand or business is represented visually. This is now the primary initial communication touchpoint between you and your customer, but yet many still see fit to use old jaded headshots on personal profiles, bland stock images on website, and amateur product shots, without conveying any brand values or atmosphere. Many seem stuck in the 1980’s when it comes to branding strategies, putting more effort into logos and website design than how their business comes across in the images themselves.
Make your customers curious
Your branding imagery needs to represent your brand values. It needs to convey professionalism or creativity, fun or trust, flexibility or value, whatever values you represent. These should never be just images of you or your business. They are communication tools, perhaps the most important you will create. Whatever you put out there needs to cut through the noise of the other 1000s of images someone will come across daily. They need to create a desire and interest in the viewer, a curiosity to find out more.
Creating photography brief
I had worked with so many photographers over the years before I had the great fortune to meet Rose. Previously I had briefed others to create and capture the essence of my brand in my promotional headshots. As a motivational speaker, I am the brand and product, and so the imagery needs to convey a playful curiosity as well as provoke reaction and thought. I always either got two-dimensional images without much creativity, or off-the-wall ideas that showed little understanding of the brief or requirements.
Finding your Photographer
The essence of good branding photography is to take the brief, deliver, and then add some. This is where you need the professional support, to know what will work. Sometimes the ideas we have as the brand owner simply won’t look good visually, but you need to work with someone who can tell you that up front. You need to work with someone who knows how to take a brief (or help you to shape yours), and turn it into something amazing. Who comes to the table with ideas and suggestions, with creativity and skill, who knows what is feasible in post-production and what needs to work on the day of the shoot.
You need a photographer that is part creative director, part technical whizz, part production guru and part business savvy. You need someone who can take your brand and turn it into something truly amazing in a series of images.
Rose is that alchemist who’s passion for creativity clearly shows in her branding work. I simply would never use or recommend anyone else for branding work.
Check out more of Roses shots, and Ken’s amazing motivational speaking at www.kenhughes.info
