As a personal brand photographer in Wiltshire I’m asked time and again what you should bring along to your personal brand photography session. To help you prepare, and give you some ideas I thought it would be handy to share a list of the top five props I ask all my clients to bring to their photo shoot. I hope the photos will also give you a good idea of how we’ll be using them during the session as well as explaining why these items are helpful. I’ll also give you some ideas for content & social media posts you can create to accompany images featuring these props.
1: A Laptop & Phone
A personal brand shoot is really all about giving your audience a window into how you work and your day-to-day life so they can connect with you. Bringing along your laptop is helpful as we can use it to capture images of you at work. Images with laptops are great for you to use for those ‘It’s Monday/Today I’m bossing my to do list’ posts. Images with your phone are great to show you on a call, illustrating posts about sales calls, reaching out and making contact, as well as posts about social media.
2: Notebook and/or Diary & Pen
A note book is a great illustrator for showing you coming up with fresh ideas. Images with note books & diaries in them are great to accompany ‘back to school’ posts in September, or New Year goals posts in January as well as any captions about list writing. Diaries are also great to accompany posts about your availability.
3: A coffee cup
It’s important for us to create some images of you relaxing as well as working & looking like a boss and shots of you having a coffee break or making a cuppa are brilliant for illustrating posts about Sunday mornings, the weekend or unwinding. They’re also brilliant for those early morning instagram posts.
4: Your products or industry tools
This shoot is about you, and what you do so of course please bring anything that you sell, or is related to your service. For florists this may be flowers & ribbon. If you’re an architect it’ll be plans and sketches, if you’re a photographer it’s a camera. Even if you think something is boring and every day, trust me your audience won’t think so, and these little detail shots are a great way of giving a little window into your day to day working life. The images are really helpful for icons, and in use on your website.
5: Outfit Changes
To make the most of your session, and make as much content as possible it’s a good idea to bring a few changes of clothes with you so we can put together a few different looks. This will give you a wide variety of images, and tonnes of content you can use over and over again without your instagram feed looking a little bit repetitive. When choosing outfits I’d say choose something you feel comfortable in. If you’re not comfortable it will show. Also, bear in mind that light, plain colours rather than patterns look better on camera as they don’t distract the eye. Also, ladies depending on whether it’s appropriate I may ask you to remove your shoes for photos so please make sure your toenails are either totally clean or varnished. I learnt this lesson the hard way by painstakingly photoshopping chipped toenail varnish on one client!
I really hope that’s been helpful for you and given you a few ideas. This list is just a starting point for you, if you have any other items you feel would be helpful to bring along to your personal brand photography session then do, any items which are of personal significance can be great to include as they’ll help your audience get a better feel for you and connect with you, which is what a personal brand shoot is really all about!
If you’re interested in booking Lydia for a personal brand photography session in Salisbury, Wiltshire then get in touch. We’d love to hear from you.
