branding
This is for business owners looking for a more introspective, heartfelt reflection of who they are — more variety in their content than the churn-it-out version everyone else seems to be doing. A coffee shop owner, a life coach, musician, artist, any number of industries. What they provide the public can be detailed and oriented to exactly the clientele they want to invite into their future — personalized right to them.
What I want a client’s customers to feel is that they got to know the individual through that photo session — that we have a finger on the pulse of who this business owner really is, and that they’re approachable, warm, and have real authority in their sector.
“You did a great job! Everyone comments on how the pictures are beautifully done and is the right vibe for my business. Thank you so much for your insight and talent.” Ruth Daly
A branding session is different from a family session because it’s so much more one-on-one. I actually sit down with the client first — whether that’s over a video call or in person — to talk about what their business is, and how they want to represent themselves to their clientele, to the public. We go through Pinterest boards for inspiration they’ve been drawn to. We look at other companies in their sector — what they like about them, what they don’t, how they’d like to be different. And then we talk about their business mantra: the heart of their story, and how they want to draw the kind of business they want into their future.
Through that meeting, we uncover the heart of their business and how they want to be portrayed. That shapes the shoot itself — sometimes it makes more sense to find a secondary environment that highlights what they do or how they interact with clients, rather than a studio; sometimes it’s a studio, with really fine portraits.
The photos serve a business owner’s actual work because it’s not just portraits of them in their business — it’s the filler images they’ll use for their own content creation. For a life coach, that might mean their favorite books, notes, journaling, a snapshot of their hand with a pen mid-entry — what alone time actually looks like for them. It’s cracking open the heart of their business and finding the many ways to show that to the public: their website, handouts, introductory pitch emails, headshots.
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serving Hamilton, and the GTA