All small business owners need brand photography. It’s one of the easiest ways to set your company apart from your competition and can help make you the go-to expert in your industry in your market.
Brand photography is a powerful tool for building a stronger brand identity. It helps to create a visual language that speaks directly to your target audience, conveys your brand values and tells your story in a compelling way.
When you invest in high-quality photography and use it to promote your business online, on your social media feeds, on printed materials and everywhere else you advertise and market, your brand grows stronger, gains more recognition and becomes a force to be reckoned with.
But what types of brand photography are there and which are right for your business?
Below, we’ll help you decipher seven types of brand photography and provide info on how to best take advantage of each.
1 – Personal Brand Photography
Personal brand photography is an all-encompassing term for the photos you use to represent your brand. Because they’re custom-shot for your business, they’re 100% on-brand by design, showing off your personality and the vibe of your company in a way stock photos never could.
Personal brand photography can take many forms and can come to being through a variety of photo sessions. I like to do personal brand photo sessions on location in informal, organic and even outdoor settings. I might take shots of you interacting with clients, typing away at your computer, modeling your latest product line or wrenching away on the retro mod you’re tuning up for a customer. The big goal is to emphasize the environment, props and backgrounds that showcase your business.
People sometimes confuse personal branding photography with headshots, but they’re not the same thing. (You may actually need both.) Branding photos are what bring your website, blog, social media, advertising banners, marketing pieces, newsletters and email marketing to life.
You’ll need a handful of different brand photos so you’re not placing the same picture everywhere. It’s best if you’re not repeating the same shot over and over for different uses.
Since your personal brand photos will be showing off your personality, they’ll be great at helping people feel like they know you, simply from seeing your picture.
2 – Product Photography
Product photography consists of images of your actual items for sale. They’re pictures meant to entice customers to purchase the product on display, placing the spotlight directly on the details and features that let viewers actually see the product, in part or in whole. Think of product photography as an accurate visual description of your product.
Product photographs are often taken with the help of a cyclorama, or “cyc wall”. It’s a blank background with curved surfaces and seamless corners that gives the photographer an “infinite” space to work with. Cycloramas provide a neutral, endless-looking backdrop that keeps the focus entirely on the subject. Cycloramas come in sizes ranging from tabletop setups all the way up to giant Hollywood-scale stages as big as a warehouse.
RULE! Don’t skimp on product photography. Remember, a picture tells a thousand words, and you don’t want the message your product photos send to be “I’m cheap,” “I’m lazy,” or “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
Use these photos on your website, sales brochures, advertisements and anywhere else you want people to see your actual products.
3 – Event Photography
This is one of the best kinds of brand photography. It has the ability to showcase your current customers enjoying your company to potential new customers. Event photography is a way to get ready made photography gems out of an event you’re already holding. Are you holding an open house or a customer appreciation party? Don’t forget to get some photos taken during the event. The agenda surely provides numerous opportunities for key moments, faces filled with compelling reactions and exciting reveals, right? So why not capture them for use in your marketing materials?
Even if your event is a simple booth at the local farmers’ market, any event is a great opportunity to capture photos of you in your element, interacting with your customers and just flat out looking the part.
Event photography ensures that all the time and effort you put into putting on an event doesn’t go to waste after the event is over. Photos of your event can be used in future marketing pieces, including in promoting next year’s version of the same event, and showing employees and users interacting with your products in natural ways.
You’ll want to get it right by hiring a professional because any photography that impacts your bottom line is worth every penny it costs to have them taken. Asking your guests to take their own pictures and share them with a hashtag is a great idea, but it’s not good enough to serve as the sole photos from your events.
4 – Lifestyle Photography
Don’t let the name deceive you. Lifestyle photography is still brand photography. These are the photos of you doing your work, and also the ones of you when you’re not. Lifestyle photography shows off your personality of course, but also your work ethic, dedication, enthusiasm, passion and knowledge.
In this day and age, small businesses are more attached to their owners than ever before. A lot of times the face of the company is just as important as its product. People want to know who they’re buying from, what the owner represents, and how the owner conducts themselves.
Every small business needs candid, native-feeling shots and clips that show more of what really goes on inside a small business. It’s this batch of brand photography that makes you a person and sends a strong message that you eat, sleep and breathe your product.
This type of photography shows a little bit of you beyond the business itself. A sneak peek behind the curtain of your mad genius is always a good thing, and it goes a long way toward establishing a real connection with your clients.
5 – Services Photography
A must for service-based businesses!
Here’s a list of businesses that would be great candidates for service photography:
- Real Estate Agents
- Life Coaches & Health coaches
- Financial Advisors
- Massage therapists
- Estheticians
- Personal Trainers & Fitness Instructors
- Hairstylists & Barbers
- Interior Designers
- Attorneys
- Therapists & Counselors
- Private Chefs
- Auto Mechanics, Fabricators & Car Builders
- Au pairs, Doulas & Midwives
If you’re trying to attract customers to your service-based business, people are much more likely to hire you if you have great photography before they hire someone who doesn’t have a professional appearance in their marketing materials.
That’s because your clients are doing more than just buying your service. They’re choosing to trust you for an important role in their lives, often before ever meeting you face to face. The right photography lets potential new clients see your personality, your environment and the way you work. This builds a sense of familiarity and trust long before the first phone call or consultation. In fields that can feel intimidating, impersonal, or hard to differentiate ( i.e. legal, financial, or consulting work) a genuine photo does something a bulleted list of credentials never can.
When all the accolades you can put on your website are pretty much the same as the guy down the street, how can you separate yourself from your competitor? Like it or not, in the absence of any real differentiating facts, people make these types of decisions based on looks and visual appeal.
6 – Food Photography
This is a very specialized type of brand photography. If your business is a restaurant, food truck, hamburger stand or ice cream shop, you’ll need food photography.
People eat with their eyes first. There’s a reason we say “my eyes were bigger than my stomach”. Humans are biologically hardwired to choose food that looks safe, fresh and appetizing. Food that looks good sells. So, don’t sell your dishes short by skimping on the photography of them.
Ever notice how the photos on a menu somehow look better than the dish that actually lands on your table? That’s the work of a skilled food photographer. A professional food photographer knows the tricks and techniques to make every item on the menu look irresistible.
7 – Headshots
I’ve saved the type of brand photography you’re probably most familiar with for last.
Headshots are exactly what they sound like. They feature a front-on close-up photo of your head and shoulders. Traditionally they use a standard formal pose that almost always has a plain single color background.Usually the background is white, grey or black. This method focuses totally on the person in the photo. That’s why they’ve historically not used an interesting environment or background, and as the subject you’re encouraged to wear a suit or blouse that looks basically identical to ones worn in every headshot from the beginning of time.
Thankfully headshots are more dynamic today, and we can be more creative with them.
A headshot is a time-tested business tool. Today it can be used for your social media profile, the “About” section of your website or “Meet The Team” type materials. Real estate agents often use headshots on their business cards and yard signs.
Headshots are great for these applications because they are usually small and tightly cropped for placement where there’s only enough space for your head and shoulders.
Book a Business Boosting Brand Photo Session Today
Each of these seven types of brand photography help you harness the power of professional photography in building a stronger brand identity. Use them to make waves in your industry!
There’s no better way to share the story of your brand and connect with your target audience.
I’m excited to help your small business secure professional brand photos you’ll be proud to put into use in your marketing and advertising. I make the process stress-free and doable by taking away the overwhelm, capturing your passion, giving you the assets that can make a difference and, if necessary, helping you figure out how to use them.
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