How to use photography to reinforce your brand

All too often, the imagery in branding and marketing is a poor after thought. An ill-thought out, rushed part of the process that involves scrabbling around stock libraries, trying to find an image – any image – to use to break up the text.

What a waste!

A waste of 'real estate' on your website or in your advertising campaign and a waste of opportunity to engage your target audience through reinforcing your brand with well-conceived, relevant, high quality supporting imagery.

Make imagery a priority

Don't treat the pictures as an after-thought. Successful advertising and marketing ideas incorporate both messages and images right from the outset. The most effective marketing campaigns I've worked on are where creative professionals; web and graphic designers and writers, have bought me in early in the process.

Originality and authenticity

Your brand is individual. It's a visual depiction of your proposition - your unique selling points, business values, business 'personality', how you change the world and improve the lives of customers.

It is likely you'll have a business strapline. A unique company logo. A colour scheme. A certain tone of voice employed in all your marketing communications.

But are you accompanying this branding with unoriginal stock shots, which will be used by many other businesses (possibly including your competitors)? Are you settling for bland, generic or cliched imagery - common ones including jigsaw puzzle pieces or handshakes, which add no value to your brand?

As a commercial photographer, my professional photography has been used to truly enhance business brands and marketing campaigns.

And this is how it can be done.

• Invest in a bespoke photo shoot by an experienced commercial photographer

Like any profession, talent and experience will vary widely. Commercial photography is a specialist skill, requiring the photographer to have a strong understanding of business and marketing. They will be able to get under the skin of the company and creatively devise a photographic style which is on brand. Whether it’s a sole trader having profile shots, a business having photography to showcase products, venues or services, or part of a creative campaign; strategic, creative thinking and working with other professionals will be a key part of the photography project. Check the photographer’s portfolio for skills in bespoke commercial photography before going ahead.

• Integrate your company colours

Colour is an obvious and well-recognised aspect of any business’s corporate brand. And there are ways of bringing this out through creative, clever planning and production. For example, I may work with a client on wearing certain colours for a profile photoshoot which are in line with their corporate brand. Or I may saturate certain colours or have a bold black and white look, highlighting one colour.

• Reflect your company personality and values

Bespoke commercial photography has the beauty of being able to bring out personality. If a business is known for quirkiness, fun and warmth, a serious boardroom stock shot will not reflect the brand. The setting, lighting, expressions used can all influence how the personality and values of the company come across. I frequently work with my clients to help bring their personalities into photoshoots, through putting them at ease and finding out what makes them tick.

• Keep a consistent look and feel cross all images

Having your own suite of photographs created for your business or advertising campaign means keeping control of the look and feel. This is incredibly difficult to achieve with stock shots. Maintaining the same themes, backgrounds, styling and editing of all imagery will build brand recognition among your target audience.

• Embrace innovation

Investing in commercial photography will enable you to be innovative, creative and adopt latest trends and ideas into your brand. For example, combining graphic design or typography into photography, going for a bold and bright colour scheme, using collage, incorporating a retro feel, bringing out textures and patterns can position you as an on trend, contemporary brand looking to make your mark, explore new ideas and push boundaries.

• Use the photography to evoke feelings in your audience

All advertising campaigns have at their heart an objective of engaging their audience. Depending on the products, services, business brand and campaign idea, this engagement may be induced in a variety of ways. It might be through humour. Through emotion. Through inspiration. Through shock and awe. Through education. Whatever it is, the imagery needs to be powerful if it’s to be effective. A commercial photographer will have the skills to take the brief and not just photograph the subject, but do so in a way that’s evokes the right emotion – making your brand all the more memorable, original and impactful.

•  Tell a story – your story

No two brand stories are the same. And audiences now have a strong interest in provenance and business values. Conveying yours through photography is a powerful way to do this – arguably there’s no more powerful way. Using generic shots will do nothing to capture imagination and encourage brand loyalty. Your own story told through quality images will bring customers with you on your brand journey.

‘’Photography is the story I fail to put into words’’. Destin Sparks, Photographer.

Be bold. Be yourself. Let your photography tell the story and build your brand.

What does your website’s ‘About’ page imagery really say about you?

The ‘About’ or team page of a website has always been important, but is of rising importance as websites increasingly become the ‘shop window’ for businesses. It goes without saying that e-commerce and online stores rely entirely on their websites for sales, but even for other businesses, the website will generally sit at the centre of marketing activity and be key to establishing credibility and authority.

Most businesses will invest significant sums on logos, branding and website imagery, whether stock or bespoke photography.

But the page of the website often neglected is the ‘About’ page, or team pages leading from the ‘About’ page.

Why?

Surely in the social media and networking-dominated business climate in which we operate, people increasingly do ‘business with people’. With face to face sales meetings falling second place to online and social marketing strategies and interaction, if we want to see the whites of a potential supplier’s eyes, the first port of call will often be the About page of a website.

Surely, every organisation has a vested interest in ensuring their people come across on their website as professional, personable, approachable and friendly, smart and presentable.

Surely every business would prefer their imagery to represent the company brand, whether that’s through the setting of their team (for example at desks, an external work setting, or even social setting) or the style of the photography (whether formal, informal, creative or quirky).

And surely every company would want a consistent look to their team photographs, conveying a well-established team, on board with the organisation’s ethos and values.

But in many cases….

• ‘About’ page contains a picture of the Director only, even when this person plays a minimal role in day to day business relationships with customers
• Team photographs are completely inconsistent, random and poor quality, obviously supplied by the team themselves varying from selfies in bars, badly cropped holiday shots, huge range of attire, and completely irrelevant off brand settings and styles

The result?  A wasted opportunity and a poor image of the business.

A company who approached this in the right way…. Psychology Direct

As a commercial photographer I was asked to photograph the team at Psychology Direct for their upcoming new website.   Psychology Direct are a business whose values are very much focused on people and quality. They have a strong, happy, highly engaged and valued team, whatever their role (including Buzz the dog). They pride themselves on client service and the strength of their professional relationships, and whilst most of their relationship-building occurs on the telephone, they wanted their team to look the approachable, friendly, go-the-extra-mile bunch they truly are.

The decision was taken to not only take individual high quality professional profile shots of all team members (including Buzz the dog), but also some lovely whole-team shots.

Conveying and reinforcing the company brand through high quality commercial photography

The individual profile shots were designed to be just that, individual. We wanted a natural, informal feel to the photographic style and I couldn’t have worked with a friendlier, more open, relaxed group of people (and pets), making it so much easier to achieve this natural look. We added variety and conveyed the fun personalities of team members through using a range of poses rather than only face-to-camera shots. Incorporating shots of Buzz the Dog enabled the injection of humour and light-heartedness, again, reflecting the company brand.

For the group team shot, we wanted to reinforce the close-knit nature of the team whilst also promoting the company. Having the whole team in one shot, with equal presence was a challenge. But taking a wide shot, with team members stood proudly around Psychology Direct banners, enabled us to achieve a high quality, professional, unique image which achieved all the objectives.

Present your team in the best light

Using my portable studio, shots were set against a white background, so the team member was the main focus of the shot, with no distractions. Shots taken against a white background can run the risk of being stark, and this is where commercial photography experience and skills come in. Getting the lighting right is crucial - the right levels of light, delivered at the right angle – in this case 45 degrees from the subject on either side of me about 1 ½ metres from the background.  I use a light meter to measure the exposure I require, 200 ISO and grey card my camera for best results. I use a full-frame Nikon750 and a portrait lens 50-70mm for the most flattering angle. Shooting in a raw format enables me to deliver maximum digital quality when it comes to post production and retouching.

Fantastic results, from every angle

The resulting shots, achieved over one morning, are a great asset to the company. Elevating their About/Team page to a professional level, potential clients and Associates will now gain a positive impression of the team at Psychology Direct they’ll be dealing with.

‘As part of our rebrand and website redevelopment and the addition of a 'Meet the team' page we needed a great set of team photos that reflected our personality whilst being professional.

From the initial enquiry to receiving the actual photos, Amanda was warm, accommodating, receptive, creative and all the timescales were met.

As a result, we now have photos that the team love and most importantly reflects us, our values and our culture. It was worth every penny and would recommend Amanda to anyone and everyone!’’. Aaron Banham, Director, Psychology Direct.

Looking for your website ‘About’ page to say something positive about you? Then ensure the photographs of your team say ‘professional’ as well as reflect the values and brand of the business.

To discuss your project or for a quote, contact me on [email protected] or 07767 776839.

Why website photography matters more now than ever before

Have you spotted the recent trends in website design? Image-dominated, simple, classy, with a lot of websites moving towards one page.

With most people viewing websites on their phone or tablet, the first image they see must tell them everything. It must reinforce the company brand. Convey the product or service you are selling. Get across your selling points and benefits. Have an impact on the person viewing it, whether it’s jaw-dropping wow factor, or to evoke emotion, curiosity or humour.

Whatever it does, it’s a big ask from that one image.

And with so much hanging on that image, why not invest in a good one?

Reliance on stock images for your website carries risk. The risk that another company could have the same image. That it won’t look authentic. It will be very difficult, if not impossible to find the ideal stock image that’s an accurate reflection of your brand and does your product or service justice. It limits creativity and ability to convey an advertising concept that’s completely original and true to you.

If your business is in something visual, your website photography becomes all the more important. It’s an opportunity to put your product or portfolio on display looking its absolute best. For a landscaper or garden design company for example, there is no better way to ‘sell’ and make an impact than stunning, high-quality photography of gardens they have created that truly reflects the quality of the work.

It’s no longer good enough to just say what you do is great and expect potential customers to envisage what you can do for them.

You need to show them.

Sell them the dream. Leave them in no uncertain terms of what they can expect from you. If you don’t, you’ve missed an opportunity. After all, any company can source a stock image. But a high quality, professional company will be more likely to invest in showcasing their work through a quality suite of photos.

If you have made the decision to use bespoke, not stock, images on your website, the next, very important factor to bear in mind is the quality of those images. As great as phone cameras are; they cannot take photographs of the quality needed to front your website or populate your portfolio page.

Photography, whether of products, interiors or exteriors needs expertise on lighting, settings, camera angles, editing and production.

A recent project involved a company specialising in minimalist-style glazing installations who wanted photographs to set off the stunning nature of their products and workmanship. Photographing glass requires very specialist skills to ensure no reflection and an attractive view, in order to capture the beauty of something that is essentially invisible. A challenging photography brief, getting this right was key to the success of this company’s website mgiuk.

Matt Woodacre at Indigo Marmoset, Indigo Marmoset the web designers behind MGI’s website said ‘working with an expert photographer to deliver beautiful quality and well-produced imagery, elevated the website significantly. It gave the design a truly bespoke, upmarket and quality feel, perfect for the audience we were targeting’.

A commercial photographer can take your project and bring them to life in a spectacular way. They can interpret a brief and create a visual style and finish of photography that is as individual as you are. They can ensure visitors to your website are inspired and wowed.

For the ultimate professional business image, make sure you invest in that website image.

For advice, quotation or to arrange photography for your portfolio or website at very reasonable rates, contact me, Amanda Duncan at [email protected]