How to choose the best locations for your personal brand photo-shoot
The setting for your photo-shoot is such an exciting and important element to get clear on well before the day of your session.
Featuring heavily in the shots, the location will say a lot about you and your work-in-the-world, setting the scene and colour palette for your branding, and telling a story about who you are in your business.
It might make sense for you to be photographed in your office or studio, your favourite local streets, beloved nature spots, luxurious hotels or the coffee shop around the corner. Or, you may be wanting to keep things simple with plain backgrounds or a studio setting, and don’t want to give anything away with the location!
Choosing the best environment for your next shoot all depends on:
how you’re going to be using the images
what’s important about the aesthetic of the photos and
what you want to communicate through the shots
Here are five powerful journal prompts to help you get clear on the kinds of locations that will work best for YOUR next shoot as well as bonus tips on scouting your location for photo-shoot success!
Pens at the ready…
The journal prompts
How and where do you plan to use your new photography?
Write a list of everywhere you’ll be be using your new images, so that you know exactly what you’re planning for here.
This may seem ridiculously obvious(!), but it’s so important to be clear on this before your shoot, and can be a really helpful exercise in itself.
Knowing where you’ll be using your photos means that you and your photographer know what types of shots you’ll be creating, and have shared intentions for your session together. This will also help you to choose locations/backgrounds that will work well for the uses you have in mind.
This simple list-making process can also inspire ideas you may not have had yet (or confirm your intuitions)!
Once you’ve jotted down your initial ideas, look through your website, social media profiles, mail-outs/newsletters, press pack, etc, as well as thinking about your marketing intentions for the coming months, to help complete your list. You can check out a full list of ideas here.
What will be important about the backgrounds of your images?
Depending on how and where you’re planning to use the photos, you may have some ideas about what kinds of backgrounds you’d like to have in your new shots (e.g. your office, a plain background for layering text, in nature, etc).
You're probably going to be using your shots in a variety of places. Consider how much you’d like to share with the environment for your photos. How much you want to give a glimpse into your world, style and location?
Make a note of any ideas that come to mind at this stage. Don’t worry if you’re not completely sure about this yet, stay curious for now and make a note of any initial thoughts that arise.
What do you want your audience to know about you?
Your photo-shoot location is an opportunity to tell your story and connect with your people. What do you want them to know about you? Note down what comes to mind.
How could your choice of locations communicate something about you as a person and a professional? Perhaps you would like to give them a glimpse into where you’re based and work from? Or the kinds of locations you would meet, if you were to get together in person? Or perhaps in places you feel most inspired, or where you hang out in your spare time?
Consider again where you are planning to use the photos, and what kinds of environments will make sense for the posts or pages you're planning to share, or offerings you're making.
Some ideas could be: your office/home office, your home, your co-working space, a local cafe you love, a favourite hotel lobby, a hotel meeting room, your favourite spots in nature or a garden, special streets in your local area.
Examples: On my shoot with Jodie, we captured her in her creative work-spaces at home, in a trendy local cafe where she often meets with clients, and in favourite city hangouts, to show where she lives and what she’s into. Everything had the aesthetic she loves, was aligned with her brand, and the locations were chosen for this reason. On this shoot with Rachel, I set up a pop-up studio so we could create lots of plain-background shots for layering text and images later. We also shot in a local forest where she often goes for walks, ceremonial work, and adventures with her family. It resonates with her life and work-in-the-world.
What colours will be important to include or avoid in your images?
Whatever colours feature in the location of your shoot will obviously feature in your photos too (whatever is around you in the photo will be shown in the images), and therefore the colours of the location will be presented on your website, socials, etc in a big way.
If you have brand colours, consider: what kinds of colours will compliment those?
If you don’t have brand colours, consider what colours you like… which resonate with you and your business. They may be colours you are generally drawn to, enjoy wearing the most, or like to decorate your home with.
Equally, consider what colours you’d like to avoid getting in the photos.
When considering locations, choose places where the background will look good with your branding and the aesthetic you would like it to have.
What aesthetic do you want your images to have?
Consider the aesthetic of your brand, and what will be important to feature in the location. The location will contribute massively to the look and feel of the shots. Is your branding deep, rich, gritty, dark? Is it sparkly, bright, soft, shiny? Is it modern, slick, clean? Is it punchy, bold, colourful?
What words would you associate with the aesthetic of your brand, the textures, tones and styles?
A trendy studio in an old factory with non-matching furniture and painted concrete floors is going to look and feel very different to a fancy hotel with luxurious interiors, high art and modern furnishings, as will being photographed on the beach, on the moors or along a wooded river.
What kind of aesthetic feels aligned with your tastes and personal brand? What kind of locations are most ‘you’, and what is relevant to show your clients?
Being clear on this will help you know what you're looking for in a location. Remember that it may be possible to have photos taken in more than one location depending on the length of shoot you are having, and to capture different sides of you.
The bonus tips for getting the most out of your potential location…
Assess the natural lighting at your potential venue!
Gorgeous portraits need gorgeous LIGHT! Choose locations that have fantastic natural light no matter the weather (aka, big windows!). If not, I should be able to light the space with studio lighting, but what’s possible is on a case-by-case basis depending on our access to the space (e.g. do we have the place to ourselves?) and the size of the venue.
Choose the best time of day for the natural light.
The natural light changes throughout the day as the sun moves across the sky, as well as over the months and seasons as the length of the days changes, and the arc of the suns path gets higher and lower over the year. If you’ll be working with natural light on your shoot, stop into your potential shoot location to see when the light it is at its best, and how it is in different weather scenarios. The app ‘Sun Seeker’ is AMAZING for getting to see exactly where the sun is in the sky throughout the year.
If shooting in public places, be mindful of when the location is busier and quieter. Ideally we’ll be shooting at a time of day when it is quietest, but this will depend on the type of venue or setting.
Now what?
As you ponder the types of locations that will best suit your brand, bring awareness to your everyday…
Where are you going, what kinds of spaces are you most enjoying being in?
Where are you meeting/working with clients (if you meet in person)?
What themes are you noticing between locations you love and/or work from?
Would any of these settings make sense for your photo-shoot?
Know that if you choose to collaborate with me on your next shoot, we'll explore this together and find the perfect spaces for your shots.
