This is a gallery I delivered to Jeff, a local real estate partner. The idea was to photograph him in a variety of situations that reflect the way he works.
We started with headshots.
Then we moved on to promotional portraits. These are portraits photographed in ¾ and full body, in a variety of poses, standing, sitting and leaning in different parts of our space.
After promotional portraits I love to photograph moments of reflection. These are portraits that show you in thought. When you’re weighing decisions, or brainstorming ideas on how to solve your clients problem, what does that look like? We run the gamut of expressions with this section from victory to defeat. This starts to build trust and show confidence and competence. The cookie cutter photos of you with a laptop, a cup of coffee and smiling at the camera, is not an authentic photo, you’re not fully engaged with your work or with me in those photos. These photos are gold when you’re writing about your process as a business owner, or a leader, it visually punctuates the story that you are telling.
These are photographed in color and black and white. I like to keep negative space in a lot of them to allow you and your marketing team to add text.
The next section is photographs of you using technology. We use your phone, laptop, software, favorites apps, sticky notes, notepads, tablets, if you use it to brainstorm ideas, we photograph it. Again, this builds trust in your clients eyes. When they can see what your process looks like and you look professional, confident and approachable, they start to feel confident that you’re the right answer to their problem. I often will leave empty chairs at tables, this allows your potential clients to visualize themselves as part of your process. Someone can say, “ I can see myself at the table with him/her working through this”.
One of Jeff’s big selling points is that he’s available to his clients either by phone, in person or a quick video chat. Now he has photos that show him doing each of those things, his clients not only hear and read that he’s available, now they see it. Now they know exactly what it’s going to be like if they need to get a hold of him. They KNOW they can.
This was a project for a real estate agent. I’ve done projects for executive coaches, military that worked at the Pentagon and are now starting their own company, sommeliers, Veteran affairs experts, tax and financial experts.
The point of these photos is to give you a portfolio of images that you and your marketing team can use across your website and socials in order to educate your audience as to what you do, how you do it, what the process looks like and allows them to visualize themselves as part of that process. These photos not only show you, your personality and your expertise, but they also start to build trust and credibility with your audience.