First of all, I just want to start by saying that making the decision to book a session is a pretty big deal; I realize that many of you enter into it with a certain amount of nerves and ‘what on earth am I doing?’. You are not alone & HONESTLY, I understand what you’re saying.
So, if you are planning a photo session soon (don’t worry if it isn’t with me…i’ll still talk to you..but things will never quite be the same again) & you’re feeling a bit frozen and stuck for ideas of what to include on your ‘must-have’ list, here are some of my top ideas for you!
A HEADSHOT OR TWO:
You won’t hear me use the word ‘headshot’ an awful lot, as we are going to get far more creative than that BUT you will definitely want a couple of shots where you just get nice & still, look at the camera straight on, with plenty of gorgeous light in your smiling eyes ( and let’s not forget making sure we have all the planets aligned & cherubs singing your name whilst playing harps.) A reasonably sensible photo, mainly of your head, looking classy, professional, approachable, friendly (insert relevant description here) but at the same time, not forgetting to still be you (so, I will not get you to do cheesy arm-folding things if that just isn’t your thing.)
HORIZONTAL & VERTICAL:
I always make sure to shoot plenty of both because you’ll tend to use horizontal images for things like your website, social media banners with text, Facebook/Instagram ads, etc whilst vertical images are perfect from dropping straight into Instagram stories without having to crop anything. If you want your website designer to love you forever, give her lots of horizontal images! Which brings me nicely to this next idea……
NEGATIVE SPACE:
Your website designer will be practically ready to marry you if you make sure that plenty of your images have ‘negative space’. This is pretty much what it sounds like – you are positioned slightly off to the side of your image and there’s plenty of empty space in the rest of the frame which allows room to insert your text for banners, Facebook posts & ads.
PLAIN WHITE WALLS:
A lot of my clients have expressed a need for Facebook ad/website-ready photos and one of the ways that we do this is to find ourselves a nice plain white wall & shoot against that. It adds to the variety pf your ‘bank’ of photos’ some will have pretty things going on in the background, others will just be plain with a view to being able to easily cut you out of the photo and paste you anywhere you like (Barbados perhaps?)
PLANNING AHEAD & LOOKING BACK:
I will encourage you to look back at blog posts/FB posts/articles you have written or just think back to a time when you needed a photo to accompany text & you didn’t have the right image. What was it you were looking for? Let’s create it now! And which posts are you cooking up in your head? do you have an event or a launch in the pipeline? Let’s also plan ahead and think of what you’ll be writing about in the future! Yes, you can always grab a stock image in an emergency but nothing beats the connection you make with your audience when you show them snippets of YOU.
QUIRKY STUFF:
Let’s never forget to bring the fun to a photo session! We always plan for some shots that offer a ‘day-in-the-life’ or ‘behind-the-scenes’ feel. If possible, it’s always great to rope in other human beings so we can capture you interacting & showing off your magic ways. And I love getting my clients to work through different facial expressions; not only do we capture some great expressions but its always an opportunity to get some natural laughs out of you as you make different faces at the camera!
We are aiming for images that showcase your personality. That help you to forge a deeper connection with your ideal clients. As human beings, we are all unique & fascinating with our own individual stories, perspectives, experiences, challenges & passions and we love to dig into a good story about other people with their own individual stories, perspectives, experiences, challenges & passions!
We have to strive to make that connection with our potential clients on a personal, below surface-area level. Otherwise, we are basically just saying “buy my stuff cos it’s great & I want your money”, and methinks you know by now that this technique just doesn’t work.
What does work is concentrating on all the pieces of the connection puzzle, looking at areas where you can connect on a less superficial level, and your imagery is a major piece of the Deep Connection Puzzle!