Your potential clients and customers want to connect your face and your voice with your brand, so let's chat about gorgeous brand photoshoots!
Specifically we're going over:
P.S. I highly recommend the Converting with Color Masterclass. It’s completely free, and it’s a bit over 60 minutes of intensive education that will really open your eyes to the world of color.
Your potential clients and customers want to connect your face and your voice with your brand, so let's chat about gorgeous brand photoshoots!
Specifically we're going over:
P.S. I highly recommend the Converting with Color Masterclass. It’s completely free, and it’s a bit over 60 minutes of intensive education that will really open your eyes to the world of color.
Welcome to the visible entrepreneur podcast season five. I'm your host, Michelle Lewis, founder of visibility vixen. I've spent years studying color psychology, branding, visibility and publicity, all geared to help you hit your goals faster than anyone else. I'm a TEDx speaker, Amazon Best Selling Author and have helped 1000s of entrepreneurs worldwide with their visual presence. This season, we're diving deep into color, why it's needed, how to use it in your branding, and how audiences subconsciously and physically react to it. My goal is to help you blow up your brand in the best way to attract your ideal audience, subconsciously, I run two programs, the color course and the visibility lounge. So if you're ready for growth, go to visibility vixen.com To get started today, in the meantime, let's dive into today's episode. And if you think this is a topic that a business bestie, or a friend of yours, or even a relative would love, do me a favor, forward it to them. And let's dive in to this episode. Welcome back. We are on episode three of season five of the visible entrepreneur and this episode is an exciting one because we are talking about brand photography, how do you create a brand photoshoot that your ideal client loves and more importantly, you love, right? Because you need to actually post these pictures when you're done. And I know so many people that once they're done with a photo shoot, they're like, I hate the photos, and they never see the light of day, right? So we're gonna be talking about that today talking about what do you put into your look, your location, your shot list. This is something that I have done a million times with myself and with clients. I'm very fortunately married to a photographer as well. So I have picked up a lot of tricks, tips and tricks along the way. I'm sorry, my mouth is not moving properly. As we all know, as we batch record, things can get a little crazy, but we're gonna have a lot of fun this episode. If you are curious about learning more about color psychology, specifically how it relates to your visual presence and upping your conversions, then I highly recommend the converting with color masterclass, I'm going to link that below. You can also find it at visibility vixen.com, it's completely free. And it's a little bit over 60 minutes of intensive education that will really open your eyes to the world of color. So check that out. Alright, so when it comes to a brand photoshoot, what are the biggest problems that I see, I see a lot of people that put this off until years into their business, if this is you don't feel guilty, it's okay, we're gonna talk about it. But they really don't want to deal with this. They don't want to get on camera, maybe there's a self esteem issue, maybe there's a technical issue, all kinds of things can get in the way. And so this becomes the last thing that they do. And the problem is, so many people want to know your face, your voice with your brand that they struggle, because they see this really beautiful brand with all this attention put into it. And then the photo is like just of your face. And it's from you know, 2003 and you took it with your phone or on your laptop, and it can be a natural disconnect. So we want to keep that from happening by having some photos that not only help your ideal clients, find you and connect with you, but also make you feel really good about your brand and business. This is a huge self esteem boost, especially when you are posting on social media, when you are putting together your press page when you're pitching for different publicity opportunities when you book them and they say okay, your articles gonna go live, but I need three, high quality high resolution photos of you, and you're like, I don't have any right. To keep all of those problems from happening. We need a brand photoshoot. But a lot of people feel confused because they feel like the only way they can do that is if they hire a brand photographer and spend 1000s of dollars trying to get the perfect pictures. The truth is you don't need that if you have the basics. If you have the basic information. You can do this from an iPhone, it has a high enough quality now, right? I sent a photo of myself the other day and it was like 4.2 megapixels, I was like that's fantastic or megabytes, whatever it is. So that's plenty, plenty of space. You can also get it done professionally. That's great too. But even if you do, you need to know the information so that you are the one guiding the photographer don't let them guide you. You're going to be upset because you're going to hold one pose and have a smile and then over time if you're watching this on video, this will make a lot more sense. It's going to go from this to this
right because your mouth is not meant to smile that long. You need to know to alternate between closed lips and open mouth and your foot are always going to tell you that because they're not going to know you need to know how to position in your body, so that you know, arm flab doesn't make an appearance, even skinny arms if Ill proportions on camera can look like too much, right? All these little things, these little tweaks that help in a photoshoot. So inside of my visibility lounge program I have I have it in I have a guide like a shot list inside of the color course within the lounge I go into a little bit more detail of the actual photoshoot and I have a behind the scenes of me being photographed. It's so funny because all pause in the middle of it and go like Okay, hang on, Nathan wait. Okay, so now I'm going to position my body like this and do this. So that'll stop this from looking like this. It has nothing to do with your weight, or anything about your image, it's everyone does it even the skinniest model on a photoshoot has to pose a certain way to keep something from looking out of proportion just because of the camera lens, right, you can simply move your head forward a bit, and it will make the rest of your body look slimmer, those kinds of things. Alright, so a little bit of a tangent there, let's get back to your location. This is a really important part of your session because your location needs to be reflective of the kind of feeling you want in your brand. So if you are more of let's say, a tech guru, and you show people how to build the backend of their membership sites, let's say, well, you're probably not going to want to be in a meadow, unless the only people you help are ones that are like health experts or yoga retreat people or something like that, most likely, you're going to be in more of an indoor environment or an office environment or on your couch or something like that, depending on your ideal client, right. Whereas if you are a workout coach, and let's say you're really passionate about people not having to buy exercise equipment, because you feel like the outside is their gym, then you're gonna want to shoot it outside. Right. Some of it seems really obvious, I know. But sometimes people get stuck. So figure out what you want your environment to be. I've done a lot of different things. But I tend to now stick with interior because that's where I can get this more cobalt T blue color works for me, I you can see the chair behind me we're going to be doing a photoshoot there pretty soon. So just figure out what kind of environment is going to work best for you. The second thing you're going to want to look at is your look, how do you want to come across on camera? Do you want to be a little bit more natural, guys, if you're listening, I get it. We're not doing a ton, right? We're just about the camera. But the one thing you may want to think about is shine, right, you might just need to translucent powder just to map things down. So it's okay. Every actor does it. For if you are looking at having you know some makeup on your face for whatever reason, you can start with a translucent powder if you want a more natural look. But also look at what other things you can do with your appearance to quantitate how you want to come across. So first thing obviously is the brand color, you want to be wearing it somehow if you're thinking Michelle, my brand colors orange, I don't want to look like a traffic cone, well, then maybe you're wearing a white shirt or a gray shirt, with a big piece of orange jewelry. Those kinds of things can make a big difference. If you one of your colors is red, and you want to incorporate it somehow, my secondary one of them is red. I put that on my lip. And you can see I have roses in my background, red roses. So there's a lot of different things that you can do. I would recommend having a couple of different outfits that integrate your colors somehow, just because if you do them all in one outfit, it can be a little bit too much. If those are the only things you're posting on social media, especially on Instagram, you know where you can see the whole grid.
Two to three changes should be totally fine. I wouldn't really go above that. And then making sure like I said, How do you want your hair to be? Obviously it doesn't need to be prom. It doesn't need to be professionally done. It can be but make sure that it's something where if people see a photo of you from your brand photography, and then they're seeing you at either a selfie or in an interview. It doesn't look like two different people. Right? They need to understand that it's you. Like you can look in a couple of the last episodes we recorded my hair was down. It looks a little different with it half up, it still looks like me, right? Those kinds of things. If you want to do some test photography, do a couple of you know set your camera timer for 10 seconds or so. Put on the different outfits. Don't look at the lighting, right? That's for the professionals but just look and see how they look on your body. That will help you decide. I'm not often in something that is strapless or spaghetti strap or tank top on camera just because I tend to have A broader frame up top, so you're not going to see a lot of that. In my photography, you're also not going to see a lot of shorts or skirts, it's mainly pants, because I want it to just look a little bit slimmer, or a dress or a long skirt or something like that. That's just me over the years of knowing what works and what doesn't work, you might look fantastic. On camera in that way, these are just things I've observed where I feel at my most confident with some of those tweaks. So if you want to save yourself some money and get it all done with one photo shoot, do some test photos just to see how that works. Okay, last but not least, unit a shot list. Michelle, what's a shot list, a shot list for examples, what a director will put together for a scene to let the camera department know, these are the different angles we're going to be doing. So usually, let's say we're going to be shooting what I'm doing right now, well, we know that we're gonna have a master, so it's probably going to be further back shot, and it's probably going to include me in this camera, then we're going to have one angle where the camera comes around, it is on my face. And then another angle where the camera comes around here and is on the screen. So it's going to be three shots for that seemed, let's say. So moving that into photography, we need to be clear on the kinds of shots we want. Because otherwise photographers, I'm telling you what, they're going to do headshots here in here, turned, and then they're going to do a little bit of a wider shot this way in this way, and that's going to be it. And then you're going to go to upload your photo to like your banner for your social media, for your Facebook, your YouTube or on your website. And it's not going to fit and you're going to be like why I'm so frustrated. So instead, you need to make sure to be clear, so that when you hand that over to your aunt, or to the photographer, the professional photographer, not saying she can't be both, but you know what I mean? They are going to know exactly what you want. Okay, I want in this outfit, I want a wide image. And I want one centered, but I want most of them where I'm on one side, and there's a lot of empty space so that I can use it for those kinds of things. I want a headshot, but I want to make sure that it's horizontal. You know, they call this two T's, and up so that I can use that for media submissions. Getting that together. Obviously, I have very detailed stuff about this in the course. So if you're interested, you can jump into the color course and get that step by step shot list and see actual examples of my photography. So you can see what they look like, no pressure, but if you want that it's there for you. So we talked about your location, we've talked about your look, we've talked about your shot list. These are ways where you can get this done pretty quickly, pretty efficiently, you're going to feel empowered every step of the way. And then after the photoshoot is done, you get to pick your favorite images. And then you get to put them into your visual presence. They get to go on social media, they get to go on your press page, they get to go throughout your programs and on your website. It's great to be armed with this, because this is going to serve you like I said, not just for your own branding your ideal clients, which they're going to love right, but also in the future as you move into more press and PR for your brand. So I hope this episode was helpful, give you some ideas for the perfect brand photoshoot that your ideal client will love. I'd love to hear your feedback. So reach out on social media or subscribe to this show. Give it a five star review and let them know what you learned about brand photography. I'd love to read that. Otherwise, stay tuned next episode is going to be even more juicy. I'm gonna go drink some water so that I can speak for the next recording. But anyway, I am so privileged to have you here on the show with me. I appreciate it. I can't wait to hear what you think. And I will see you in the next episode.
I hope you love this episode as much as I did. Now we're all about building a tribe here is the visible entrepreneur, so be sure to subscribe, leave a five star review and then head on over to the Facebook group. It's a great place where you can practice your video, live stream and really enjoy the community that we have built. In the meantime, I'll see you in the next episode. Now get out there and get more visible