Top 3 things to expect when you book a personal branding headshots with this Vancouver photographer

Maybe you’re an entrepreneur who needs some new headshots to represent you online as you launch a new business.

Or maybe you’re already established in your career, but are getting more and more speaking gigs that require a polished headshot to go in a slide deck for your presentations.

Or maybe it’s been 10 years since you updated your headshot, and you’d like to have an eye-catching portrait of yourself to represent who you are today.

Whatever your reason for booking a headshot session, here are the top 3 things you can expect when you book a session at our Vancouver photo studio (and scroll down to #2) to see examples of 2 very different personal branding headshot sessions done recently for clients):

1) If you’re not totally clear on your vision for your personal branding headshots, you can expect to receive support from your photographer.

Before you even book your photo shoot at the studio, you can expect to have a consultation either over the phone or Zoom to discuss the starting point of your vision for your photo shoot, in addition to other related photo shoot details.

The consultation is an invaluable step because it helps your photographer (that’s me!) to understand how much of a concept you have in mind at this point for your headshots, in addition to getting a handle on how much you know about your brand at this point. It’s not unusual for a client at this stage to be a little unsure of what their brand is, and it’s my job to help them gain clarity in this area as we move towards their photo shoot. This is why I have a number of questions ready to go during the consultation, such as:

• What qualities/values would you like clients to see when they view your headshots?

• Do you have any branding colours?

• And other questions…

The next step is for you to create a mood board for your headshot session. This step is the key to both of us really understanding what it is that you’re after visually with your headshots. Now here’s the interesting thing: I find that there is always a very clear visual pattern connecting the inspiration photos that the client has put together- oftentimes, it may even be something that wasn’t mentioned during the consultation, but I can see it there in the mood board, helping us move towards an awesome photo shoot. From there, we’ll use these inspiration photos to personalize your photo shoot even more.

2) You can expect a truly personalized photo shoot experience.

The ultimate goal when a client books a photo shoot at our Vancouver studio is to create headshots and portraits of their dreams for them. This is accomplished by focusing on personalizing their photo shoot and really tailoring every photo shoot to the unique personality of the person being photographed. The consultation and mood board you create as the client are both necessary elements to achieving this and then on the day of the photo shoot, your photographer (that’s me!), will select lighting setups, backdrops, and provide coaching on expression and posing to honour your individuality.

Take the following to photo samples (scroll down for the other 2nd sample of headshots). These are 2 actual clients photographed within the same week at the studio, and 2 very different sets of results based on what each client asked for…and both clients were thrilled with their headshots!

3) Even if you usually hate having your photo taken, you can expect to have fun at your photo shoot : )

I joke that I specialize in photographing people who hate having their photo taken. I’d say about half of clients who book me will tell me some variation on this during their consultation. What I always say back is that usually this just means they’ve seen a candid photo of themselves that was a little traumatizing in terms of how unflattering it was, not realizing that photos like that are simply a reflection of the skill level of the photographer and that it has nothing to do with how they look personally. I will also remind them that even celebrities can look bad in photos if they don’t pose correctly- the difference is that celebrities know what to do in front of the camera and they always pose correctly, and thus, they always look great in photos. And this is possible for anyone.

Of course, it helps that on the day of their photo shoot, the name of the game is FUN. We’ll listen to their favourite playlist if they’ve got one, I’ll tell my most shameless dad jokes that never fail to get a laugh because of how lame they are, we’ll take a snack break when needed, and at the end of it all, my clients will leave the studio with a big smile on their faces.