Planning Your Brand Photoshoot

By investing in photography, you have the opportunity to reinforce your unique branding as well as take the pressure off of capturing content in house. To maximize your brand photography, we offer up our process below! We’ve used this for our brand photography planning as well as for clients. Please feel free to utilize this as a roadmap for your future brand shoot, whether it be with Lumiere Creative Co. or another photographer! 

Start With Who You Are

This feels obvious but can be easy to overlook. It’s so tempting to look at what other businesses are doing, but resist the urge! Ground your planning process in who you are, perhaps by reconnecting with your mission statement, and you’ll find that you can clarify your goals and purpose for your brand photoshoot.

If working with us – we build time into all photography packages to prioritize this. If you’re not sure where to start, we got you covered!

Create Goals

Ask yourself:

1. How do you intend on utilizing the photographs?
2. Do you have a specific sale or promotion you’d like to capture in the shoot?
3. Website photography tends to call for wide, horizontal compositions. If you need to update photos on your website, tally what pages need to be updated and take note of the content for each page.
4. What mood and vibe are you looking for? Not every brand shoot needs to look the same. Your photos should reflect your business’s brand and goals!

Compile a Mood Board

Now is the fun part! Pull inspiration and compile into a mood board on Canva. We also can do this for you. We’ll take the discussions prior and find the inspiration and vibe you’re wanting for the shoot. This includes your existing brand and your goals for the shoot. This will get us all on the same page and inform our shot list. 

If working with another photographer, this is a great time to connect with them on your vision and share the mood board. This can also inform which photographer you work with, based on their style. 

Develop a Shot List

This can include posing inspiration, flat lay ideas, headshot prompts, or simply your goals. For example your shot list could look like:

1. Headshots: a mix of traditional and more lifestyle feeling shots
2. Promoting product or sale: showcase marketing materials or the product itself that you want to highlight
3. Website content: Wide shot image to replace the image on your contact page

Connect with Your Photographer

Share your shot list and goals behind it. This will give your photographer context and allow him or her to brainstorm creative ideas. You don’t have to be the one calling all the shots! Your photographer should partner with you to reach your goals. 

Have fun!

The day of the shoot, your photographer should come prepared having reviewed the shot list and lead you through it. Trust that you’ve prepared and focus on being yourself, having fun and soaking up the experience.

[Featured photographs were shot by Amber Breitenberg]