Personal branding headshot session in the studio

I’m so excited to share these personal branding headshots of Juliana which we did at the Vancouver studio a few weeks ago.

Juliana works in design, and as designers and other visual-arts-types often do, she had a very clear idea of the type of branding imagery she was seeking for her online presence from the get go.

She knew she wanted to see at least 50% of the photos in black and white (where I’m a complete sucker for black and white portrait photography, this was music to my ears). She knew she liked the idea of movement in some of her photos and didn’t want anything that was too corporate or rigid. At the same time, a balance needed to be struck between creativity and fun and professionalism (i.e., she still needed to be able to use these headshots on LinkedIn).

Juliana was gracious enough to send a few photos my way for general photo shoot inspiration and between the photos she had chosen and what she told me about her vision for her photo shoot during my initial consultation with her, I knew exactly what direction to take her headshots in*.

On the day of the shoot, she did her own hair and makeup and brought in 3 outfits**. We worked a variety of different lighting setups and backdrops for her based on her inspiration photos. At the start of her shoot, she also mentioned that she preferred photography that had a little extra punch of contrast, which I kept in mind both while photographing her, and then later when it was time to edit her photos.

Back to the shoot itself- there is a trend in Vancouver photographer headshots and commercial headshots in Vancouver that’s been popular for the last decade or so for imagery that uses a shallow depth of field (i.e., that blurry and soft background you see in a lot of headshots). Because Juliana requested something quite distinctive and memorable, and given the fact that her inspiration photos did not include any photos like this, I decided to buck the trend and do something different for her.

The results are below!

*Note 1: I encourage everyone that I photograph (from business headshots to graduation portraits and everything in between) to find a few inspiration photos to help me visually understand their vision for their shoot. While this is intended for general inspiration for the photo shoot itself, every time a client has done this activity for me, I have found there to be a very clear visual pattern that emerges between the photos that the client has chosen which makes this an invaluable little bit of homework in the lead up to their photo shoot.

**Note 2: While there’s no limit to the number of outfits one can bring to their shoot, these days, I’m finding less is often more. There’s so much we can do with even just 1 outfit. I also find that clients who bring in 8 or more outfits tend to be a little overwhelmed by the amount of wardrobe they’ve brought in.