86. How do you plan a photo shoot?
What matters more: your photo shoot or your preparation? 📸 Hosts Phil and Lauren are in camp preparation, and this episode is all about making a plan for brilliant brand photos. You'll learn how to evaluate a photographer, decide a location, choose accessories, plan your shots, and other trade tips our hosts have learned over the years. If you want a brand refresh, listen to this episode and get new photos!
Episode transcription
Phil:
Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to Brand Therapy. I'm Phil.
Lauren:
And I'm Lauren.
Phil:
And this is a podcast where we help you position, build and promote your brands. We're really happy you're here today. It's just the two of us. So get cozy. We're talking today about one specific element as part of your brand build. So if you've heard us talk about our process, we do things in three stages, position your brand, build something to show for it, and then promote stick a for sale sign out front of that house and take it to market. As part of our build, photography is a hugely important part of our process. In fact, we would probably argue it's the most important, would you Lauren?
Lauren:
Oh for sure. Because if you've got a beautiful brand but crappy photos, it cheapens the whole thing.
Phil:
Cheapens the whole thing. And a lot of people don't put the kind of effort into their photos that they should. And it means that you have a better chance of standing out if you do start to invest properly, time, money, resources, etc, into this piece of the brand. So that's what we're talking today. We're talking about photography. We're also talking about how current events and crazy times of 2020 have affected this step of the process. Our process right now, of getting clients photographed, it's been a bit of a challenge. So we thought we'd talk about that, right. That's what we're talking about.
Lauren:
Oh, yeah. Okay. So first off, as I always like to do, I want to talk about definitions before we get really deep into the kind of nitty gritty parts of photography. So Phil, how would you define successful photos?
Phil:
I would define successful photos by saying that I can look at a photo of you and get a sense of who you are and why people should care, before I have to read anything. I need to look at a single photo of you, and maybe I won't learn everything, but I need to learn something. I need to get a sense of who you are. What's your personality? What's your perspective? What's your take on things? And also more literally, what is it you do or what is it you might do? Even if it's not necessarily, for example, a consultant, I might not know from a photo of a consultant that they're a consultant, but I might know that they're creative. I might know that they're thoughtful, that they appreciate nature and that they're thorough and contemplative, right?
So I think of photography as this, not a headshot of you like what I might see on a park bench, advertising a real estate agent, with a white background, lame. I think of photography as less about self promotion and more about if you were to star in your own Vogue editorial. What are the photos that that photographer would take of you to capture your essence, your perspective, your opinion, your brand? That's how I think about photography. And that's kind of, I would say, the methodology, the approach that we use with all of our clients.
Lauren:
Great. I completely accept. And I want to talk a little more about photography of individuals. A lot of times we'll get people who said, Oh, yeah, I just got new photos a few months ago. Let me send them to you. And they're all headshots. Can you explain why visually, headshots don't often work for a brand or for a website?
Phil:
Yeah, headshots don't tell us anything about you. We can look at them and we'd go, okay, that's a human being with a face. But that's all we get from it. They're boring. You can't be boring nowadays. You need to grab people's attention. You need to create an emotional connection, some mystery, some intrigue, about who you are. It needs to be beautiful. Also, headshots are just, they're boring. And they're typical. And they're average. And they tell us nothing about you. And so I just don't want to see them as part of your brand. I really don't want to see them.
In fact, one of the new things that I've been really pretty adamant about is your profile photo. Even if you have a headshot of yourself, I don't think your profile photo on social media should be a headshot. Because I'm assuming that with a headshot, we don't really have a lot more to the photo other than a picture of your head. And I think nowadays, it's important that even your profile photo on social media, be branded. What do I mean by that? I mean that the colors in the background of your photo of your face on your profile, should have your brand colors in the background. Why? Because that photo lives with every other social media post that you post, right? And so if you have consistency or commonality between the profile photo, even if it's tiny, with the types of colors you're posting in your social, that feels branded feels consistent, those elements live well together.
A headshot of you with no context is not going to help us achieve anything, when it comes to convincing someone that they should hire you, pay attention to you, give you, you know, two minutes of their time.
Lauren:
Yeah, yeah, completely. And just to add one more thing to what you mentioned about backgrounds. To me the main, I mean, other than the cheesy, forced pose and smile of headshots, to me the main difference between effective editorial style photography and headshots, really does fall into that background environment. Headshots have no depth. You're standing against the same background that's used in a school photo session, like in a yearbook. Whereas with me, effective personal photography, there's depth, and there's environment and there's textures and there's exciting things happening that compliment you as a person. And I feel like people maybe are a little nervous to have personal photos taken, and have competing visuals environmentally, but I feel like it kind of adds to the magic of good photos.
Phil:
I agree. There are some things you can plan before a photo shoot and other things you can't. You need to just let the magic happen. We have to kind of talk our clients through this, especially the ones that don't like to be photographed. You know, you've got a plan so you can plan your outfits. You can plan those things, but you can't over plan. Now is especially a weird time to be photographed because you can't get close to your photographer. Your photographer can't get close to you. That's been interesting to navigate.
Lauren:
Yeah, it has been and really the solution is getting photos taken outside, I think. But we'll get into that in a little. So, I want to first say something that might be bold. But just because you know, someone who is a photographer does not mean that they're the right photographer for your personal brand.
Phil:
Agreed.
Lauren:
Controversial statement, but uh, gotta say it.
Phil:
You gotta say we've learned this lesson. Oh, I have a friend who's a photographer. They shoot real estate. I'll just call them and see if they can do it. What would you say to that?
Lauren:
I'd say I'd bitch to you for six months.
Phil:
And I'd say are you a house? I thought you might like that joke. I got excited when I thought of it.
Lauren:
Are you a Miele oven?
Phil:
Because if the answer is no then friend x is not the one that should be doing it. No, that's not true. I have used real estate for photographers for interior designer projects, maybe that's the only exception I've made on that, I think.
Lauren:
But it's not a universal exception.
Phil:
No, you need to know it's not. You need to choose someone who, like I'd rather you choose a wedding photographer, someone that works well under pressure, someone that can shoot with natural light. But the point being the person you choose is not necessarily your friend. It's not necessarily someone who's going to be able to do it for free. Why do people spend all this money to show up in real life like a hair makeup outfit?
Let me choose an outfit for this wedding coming up that I'm only ever gonna wear once. Yet photos. It's like, well, who can we call that can do it for free. Excuse me. Like lower your outfit budget, your personal appearance vanity budget towards photography for one month. I mean, you're not going outside right now anyways, and get proper photos taken of yours. Now I'm ranty. Get proper photos of you because these will live for years. They'll live far longer than any kind of, you know, thing that you'll wear when you show up in real life.
And that's why I think it's really important to get this done properly.
Lauren:
So what do you think is a good price, given that we're talking about money?
Phil:
I don't know. That's your department.
Lauren:
Oh, God.
Phil:
I mean, I am a little out of touch. You handle that more for our clients. Can you first explain how it's set up? When we are branding someone they pay for the photographer? We don't. We are not subcontracted for that. Just explain that.
Lauren:
Yes, yes. So when we work with clients, we will often almost always do what we call a photography creative direction service. Which is basically us as a concierge setting up the photographer, creating the shortlist, creating the overall visual direction, setting up the photoshoot, figuring out the location with the photographer, and all the client has to do is show up, and then we help to select after the photo shoot.
It really, really helps to know what sort of makes or breaks a photo shoot, which is part of why we wanted to have this recording in the first place. When we're contacting photographers, Phil and I, just from having done this for years, have kind of go to photographers in different many, many different cities, most of whom Phil has tried out himself, and we'll decide based on Phil's photo shoot, if they're, you know, we'd recommend them for our clients.
And I would say, honestly, if someone's price is below 500 US dollars for an hour and a half shoot, and 12 to 15 selects. If they're below $500, to me, that's actually a little concerning, a little red flag. Because it suggests to me that maybe they don't have the experience to know how much to price themselves at or perhaps they're desperate for work because, I mean, obviously, in these times, people might be pricing themselves lower just to get work, which is fine.
But I say, honestly, the going rate would be anywhere from 500 to $1,000 for an hour and a half to two hours shoot, including a certain number of selects. And I think that's fair pricing.
Phil: Yes, that's a good average. it's indicative of different cities, different markets, right? Some of our clients in all different cities pay different rates. But that is a very good average for the hundreds, quite literally hundreds of people we branded.
It used to be that we would incorporate photography as part of a bigger branding project, but now, it's just easier to have us guide that process and have the photographer, you know, working directly with the client and dealing with that separately. That was I like, I love how that evolved. So that you, they kind of go direct, but at the same time, it's super important to have someone else involved. We create shot lists. There are many instances where we have to negotiate with the photographer for you. We've had lots of horror stories on that I don't know if you want to get into that.
Lauren:
So one thing that I would really, really recommend when you're finding your photographer is to agree on a flat rate. agree on a flat rate and agree on the sort of parameters of that flat rate, like a flat rate of, I don't know, $750 for an hour and a half shoot that includes 12 to 15, edited selects. That's something that as long as you establish it with your photographer, they'll usually agree to a flat rate. You want to make sure that the editing of selects is included in that flat rate, because sometimes photographers will charge hourly to edit the photos. And in my opinion, it's just a lot easier for everyone, including the photographer to be upfront and on the same page with what the rates are going to be instead of adding an unnecessary complication.
Phil:
100% it's just better to have that conversation and just be super, super super clear about that.
Lauren:
eah, because we've had some circumstances where maybe the photographer wasn't open to flat rate, but they were really talented. So we wanted to work with them anyway. And and the client really liked their work. And then as to be expected, they would bill additional wouldn't give a heads up that they're going over time because they're focused on the work and not necessarily communicating about the time and scope of that work.
So it just adds an unnecessary complication, in my opinion.
Phil:
What advice do you have for someone right now that needs to get photographed and has to abide by social distancing procedures? We talked about going outside? Are there any other thoughts?
Lauren:
Yeah, so first, find a photographer who is experienced and open because they've probably been putting a lot of thought into how to navigate this themselves. I would recommend shooting outside but look for a variety of textures and or architectures to help with your shoot.
As an example, we just had a shoot with a client who started off in kind of a gritty downtown area, and then transitioned a few blocks to more of a beachy area for her shoot all within the same hour and a half. This is going to give a wide variety of different kinds of photo backgrounds, it's not going to feel like you're circling the same block doing the same smile, even though you're outside the whole time.
Phil:
We also have a whole blog post about making sure that you don't just get photos of your face. We're finding now more than ever about the importance of having environmental photos. The what's that blog post called it's called the photo you're missing the one that you're yeah photo you might be missing from your photo shoot. We will link to it in the notes of this podcast.
But this blog post on our website is really useful because your photoshoot shouldn't just be pictures of your face. It could also be you doing things, so close up on your hands as you're flipping through a magazine or a book or having a coffee.
Lauren:
Or following you walking down the street as the back of your head.
Phil:
Exactly, exactly. So it's important to also communicate that to your photographer, don't just assume that that's what they're going to give you. They are not just going to give you that automatically. You have to ask for it. Because most people don't necessarily want photos of themselves. Oh, look, it's our family on vacation. Let's get photos of all of us together.
We don't want just photos of you in it. We need environment shots to break up, for example, text on a page on your website. If you've got services, it can't just be like text, text, text. They are not reading a book, they're looking at a website and we need visuals to break up the ability for someone to digest that information.
Lauren:
Absolutely. The instructions we will often give to photographers is that we want to feel like we're spending the afternoon with the client in their element in a way that captures their essence. So you want to be taking photos in a place that makes you feel alive and inspired because that comes through in the photography. But it's the photographer's job to make sure that they're capturing you in a variety of different angles and movements and sort of moods.
We had one photoshoot with a client, where the photographer was getting really, really like, really awesome facial expressions of our client. But the problem was that the photos and facial expressions were all the same. The client was making basically the same pose, same face angle, same eye contact with the camera in every single location. So it basically looked like it was a still of the client smiling and the background was just swapping out like the background of a zoom conference. And that is great if you're gonna use a single photograph, but if you're using photography for your website, we can't just have photos of you making the same smile over and over. That's not helpful. We want a set, we want a collection that establishes a mood and a feeling.
Phil:
Absolutely.
Lauren:
Great. So outfits on your shoot day. This is so important. First of all, you need to wear more than one outfit, right you've got to have you can wear the same jeans if you want, but you need to have a different top. And you need to have some sort of jacket that you can take on and off.
If you get a collection of photos and you're wearing the same top and every single photo that doesn't really help again with using it as a set on your website because you're wearing the same shirt everywhere.
Another thing, and this is a real pet peeve of mine, are accessories. Please wear sunglasses and hats with caution. If it's really important to you to wear a hat. Great. That's you, wear it, let's get some shots, but certainly not all shots and certainly not all shots in a particular setting or environment.
So if you're getting photos on a park bench, and there's a cool environment behind you and you're wearing a hat for some of the images, make sure that you take off your hat and get photos without the hat in that same area in that same setting before you leave.
Phil:
It is also hard to account for those things, when you're in the middle of a photo shoot. I will say it shouldn't necessarily be the responsibility of the person being photographed to keep track of that, because you're already focused on being like, Oh, God, someone's taking my picture. This is gonna look awful. Oh, I don't know. I think that it's really important to have the photographer even remind you during, to keep accessories to a minimum. I think otherwise it just becomes ridiculous.
Lauren:
Yeah, and if you're, if someone was choosing between wearing sunglasses and some photos versus no sunglasses at all, ever, I would vote no sunglasses, ever in photos. Because your eyes really capture your essence. Sunglasses might look cool in real life, but it takes away from it in photography.
Phil:
Completely. It becomes distracting. We're looking at your face, and when there's something that prevents us from actually seeing you, even not intentionally, it's not a positive feeling. And I think that's the difference in real life. Right? That's the difference of real life and in a photo is that in real life, we know you, we can hear you, we can see you. We can notice your mannerisms, but in a photo we can't. So when something is in between us, it's not really a positive feeling. Does that make sense?
Lauren:
Very good explanation. Oh, yeah.
Phil:
Yeah, I mean, some tips for getting photographs right now in this very weird, worldly climate. It's still possible. I would like to add, it's still possible to get your photos done, but I think it just requires some extra communication with your photographer.
If you have any more questions about photoshoots, feel free to send us a message or continue the conversation #brandtherapy. I am @philpallen on social media.
Lauren:
I'm @thelaurenmoore.
Phil:
And we always love to continue the conversation. If you found this particular episode useful, we would also love it if you would head over to the iTunes Store and leave us a five star. That helps other people find this podcast that we work very hard to create. Thanks so much for hanging out with us here on Brand Therapy and we will see you back next time.
Lauren:
Bye
