A definitive guide to understanding what shots you need on your session
In this post, I’m going to be showing you the different types of images we can create on your personal branding session.
When we go through the process of working together, there will be a time where I’m creating your photography brief and I will ask you for a specific shot list.
This blog post will give you some ideas of image types that you might want on your session.
Visualise and communicate
It’s really important to communicate exactly what you need to your photographer before your shoot. Take a look at your website and social content and try to envisage what kinds of images you’d like to put there. Do you need banner images? A headshot? Full body portraits? Take the time to do this visualisation exercise and it will be super clear communicating this to your photographer.
Image types
Headshot
A headshot is typically taken of the subject from their chest/waist up in portrait orientation. The background is always nice and blurry to really focus on the subject. These work great as about me page images or profile photos for your social media accounts.
Portraits to camera
Portraits to camera are the most common shots on a session. These are really engaging and it’s a chance to really show your personality. These images work really well on an ‘about me’ page or as social posts.
Action shots
Action shots are designed to showcase what it is you do. Are you a coach, hairdresser, social media manager, jewellery designer, florist? These images need to show EXACTLY what it is you do so that there’s no confusion when a potential customer sees them.
Lauren Gayfer Nutritionist
Rianna Mortimer Illustrator
Alison Howe Wedding Florist
Natalie Li Reflexologist
Kate Marsden Illustrator
Lifestyle shots
Lifestyle shots are a great way to inject more of your personality into your shoot. This is where props and location come into play to help create a “set” if you like. Lifestyle photography is all about invoking emotion from your audience and make them think “wow I really look up to that!” These images could involve your pets, other half or pals too.
These images are meant to be aspirational, inspiring and full of personality.
Behind the scenes
Behind the scenes images are a really great way to show your processes and how you do things within your business aside from the main thing. These types of shots could show you making your products, on a call with a client, packing up orders, designing new items, updating your website – the list is endless.
Details
Details are a really nice thing to add into your image content. I like to call them “filler” images because they fill in the gaps between the images of you. They work well on services pages and also make great social posts where you can create some great conversations. Props are a great way to add detail images to your content strategy. Also, shots of your workspace make great detail shots too.
E.g. Lots of cups of tea drunk today! I’m at my desk focusing on XYZ. For anyone asking, I take my tea with two sugars and brewed for 7 minutes. How do you take your tea?
E.g. Obsessed with my new notebooks that are totally on brand. Anyone else a stationery addict?
E.g. Starting my day with yoga surrounded by my crystals. This amethyst stone is a natural tranquilizer, it relieves stress and strain, soothes irritability and dispels anger, rage, fear and anxiety.
E.g. So pleased to be supporting the Just A Card campaign. They have a great mission to encourage people to support, value and buy from makers, artists, independent shops and small businesses.
Flat Lays
Flat lays make great social content and work really well for both product and service business owners. For service based business owners – the products in your flat lays could be things you use to run your business. So your laptop, favourite mug, pens, plants, notebooks, quirky desk items you might have – the list is endless! Think about what things you need to run your business daily and use those items in your flat lays.
Landscape & Portrait
It’s always good to know what orientation you want your images to be in. This means the positioning of the camera. Landscape images work well as banner images, in email marketing, on Twitter etc. Portrait images work well on about me pages, on Instagram, on Pinterest etc. The good news is you can have both! Just ask.
Landscape orientation
Portrait orientation
Website Header/Banner Images
Banner images can be designed in different ways. In the left image, I have used a landscape photo of myself to use as the banner image. On the right hand image, they’ve used a portrait photo next to a colour block with text as their banner image. It’s always useful to visualise what you think you’re going to need in your image content and have your photographer capture these images on your session.
Negative Space
Having images with negative space can be a really fun way to engage with your audience. Take this example below. Hollie knew she wanted to find a blank wall so we could capture some shots of her pointing so she could add text to her images afterwards. These work really well for launch content.
This is what the original looks like. Hollie cropped the image so it was square for Instagram and added the text in something like Canva. This image would also work well as a banner for the homepage of a website.
Space For Text
Lauren brought a white foam board to her session so that she could add text to her images for launch content. This is the before…
You can buy white foam boards from somewhere like Hobbycraft and they are super cheap.
…and this is the after! The portrait orientation works really well on Insta. Lauren added this image to her stories and used the poll feature to boost her engagement. #genius
And there we have it! My definitive personal branding shot list. I think I’ve covered it all! Hopefully now, you’ll have a better understand of the types of images you want to create and you’ll be able to relay this to your photographer so you’re both on the same page.
If you have any questions about anything please drop me an email!
Gala says
This was really informative and helpful!
Miranda Kelton says
This is an amazing list – super thorough! So helpful when trying to plan out everything you need to think about for a Personal Branding Photoshoot.
Madeline says
This was so helpful! Thank you for taking the time to share!