So you’re ready to spend hundreds of dollars on a brand session. You’ve been swooning over images from top content creators like Amy Porterfield, Rachel Hollis, Jenna Kutcher, and Jasmine Star, and you know that what’s really going to take your brand to the next level are some luminous, beautiful lifestyle headshots that you can post on Instagram and Pinterest to build Know, Like, and Trust among new people.

Or maybe you’re not a personality-based brand; you’re a product-based brand. You want images that prospective customers will see on Pinterest—or better yet, in Instagram and Facebook ads—that are irresistible. They have to click. And when they click, they have to buy!

… But if you’re like most growing companies, at least once before you’ve hired a photographer, and shelled out hard-earned hundreds (or even thousands) just to get the images back and go, “Huh. There are less photos I like than I expected.”

Ugh.

Well, today we’re going to do a couple things to combat your disappointment in the future. First, we’re going to reset some expectations that lots of business owners have the first time they pay for a shoot; and then we’re going to walk step-by-step through a process that’s called Creative Directing so that you have more control over the outcome of your next shoot.

Sound good?

Let’s go!

Resetting Expectations

It’s important if you’re going into a photo shoot for the first or second time to know a few things about the photographic process.

First, the fact that someone is a professional photographer does not mean that every photo they take is perfect. Far from. The fact that they’re a professional actually means that they’ve spent countless hours learning about light, equipment, photo trends, directing people subjects, and sometimes styling props—plus they’ve spent thousands of dollars on all kinds of equipment that allows them to do more, in more situations, than any of us can do from a camera phone.

Every shoot with a professional photographer is a process of trial and error, just as with yourself or your relatives or friends. They might be able to get more photos per hour that are winners than you would, but just because you hear the shutter click doesn’t mean that’s another photo you’re going to like or even receive. It just gives the photographer more to choose from in the editing room.

Second, you’re likely to receive batches of photos that contain many images that are nearly identical, changing only slightly image to image. You’re not going to receive 30 images per hour of completely different shots. When you receive similar images in batches of 8-12, this gives you the chance to pick the image that is at just the right angle for your taste. This is critical for headshots in particular, since we’re all our own worst critics and usually have an angle that we perceive to be our “best” angle, even if others can’t tell the difference.

This is important to know because if you need to get 20 vastly different photos for your business, you might be surprised that the photographer only has time to stage 5-6 “scenes” per hour. It’s possible that to get the photos you need, you’ll actually want to schedule a 2-hour or half-day session to be sure you get it all in.

Lastly, you might think that the more expensive the photographer, the more photos you can get. This is not always the case. It’s highly likely that if the photographer is more experienced and by extension pricier, there will be more images overall that you like and will want to use; however, more experienced photographers have the wisdom to take their time with each shot. Newer photographers tend to shoot very rapidly and end up missing details in the process, so you may end up with more photos but have to have them cropped or only use them in contexts where part of the image is covered with a textbox to hide a flaw, whereas with someone more experienced, the photos will be better, but you could receive a lot fewer, because the photographer actually takes the time before shooting to get every last detail right.

Creatively Directing

You might hear the term “creatively directing” and automatically picture someone like a film director, shouting out directions and taking absolute lead throughout a photo shoot—likely a situation you know little about.

Don’t worry. Creative direction is nothing like that.

You don’t have to know about lighting or prop styling or wardrobe to creatively direct your next shoot. You just have to know your brand inside and out, and how to communicate that to your photographer.

First Things First: Know What Photos You Need, and Where They Will Be Used

One of the biggest mistakes I see my clients make in the early days of hiring out photography is not knowing where they plan to use their photos.

In order for me to create the best possible images for you—ones that end up paying for themselves—I have to know where they’re going to go.

For example, if you need a banner image for your homepage, where you’re going to splash your slogan (something like, “Sustainable clothing that makes a difference to the earth and economy” or “Social media planning for the true beginner”), I need to know that, because:

1. It’s going to tell me to orient the image to be landscape instead of portrait (wide instead of tall)

2. It’s going to tell me to leave negative space (where your text can go)

3. It’s going to tell me to use a wider-angle lens, such as an 18mm or a 35mm, so that there’s plenty of room to crop the image to the exact dimensions for your website platform

This is a very different process from, say, if you want to use the images we’re shooting as Pinterest thumbnails, because those images should always be vertical, so they’ll take up more space in the Pinterest feed. Instagram images need to be able to crop to square (as do podcast thumbnails and headshots), and the list goes on and on. Where your images go is as important as what we put into them.

So for your next shoot, put together a shot list by carefully going through your website, catalog, blog/Pinterest, online courses, and other digital platforms, and writing down not only what you envision, but also:

• whether the image should be portrait or landscape,

• whether it needs room for text or not,

• whether it will be used for multiple contexts, and

• whether the dimensions are unusual (for instance, a Facebook cover image is not the same as your typical 4x6 print from Walgreens). You don’t need to know the exact dimensions, just whether the image is tall, wide, narrow, etcetera.

Know the Mood You You Want to Evoke in All Your Digital Materials

All people want to feel something—relaxed, safe, refreshed, inspired, invigorated, motivated, strong, savvy, triumphant, a sense of belonging, free and independent, generous or benevolent, fun, mysterious, active, youthful, trendy, cutting edge, cute, sexy, powerful, intelligent… Indeed, many of us want to feel more than one thing.

And what those feelings look like are different for different people. Free and independent, for example, can for some mean “far away from my family and doing my own thing” while for others mean “not working for the Man but running my own business.”

You need to know what your Ideal Client (we talked about this in lesson three) wants to feel. You need to what feeling this way looks like for them. And you need to know how to translate their mental picture into your images.

I’ll give you my own ICA as an example.

My ICA is:

• A woman in the US, age 30—no kids, semi-French aesthetic, highly independent and self-sufficient

• She believes in both functionality and beauty—in other words, she likes owning things that get the job done but also are pleasing to the eye, because being surrounded by beauty and intentionality brings her joy and peace

• She does not believe in superfluous “stuff”—she doesn’t buy things just to have them; they have to have a purpose. This is partially because she doesn’t want clutter around her, and also because she wants to promote a healthy planet

• What she wants to feel is confidence, and not judgment. She wants her friends and family to think of her as resourceful and creative, a woman of taste and discretion. She would not be happy to be called a packrat, materialistic, disorganized, frazzled, or wasteful

• She also wants to contribute to her generation and the generations after her by creating beauty and by demonstrating true gracefulness; gracefulness to her is about not conforming to the way of the world (always in a rush, always inconvenienced, always impatient, often wasteful), but instead living in the present, taking the time that is required, demonstrating attentiveness, and acting intentionally with her words, time, and money. Her legacy is not only what beauty she leaves behind in whatever material goods she creates (such as paintings, journals…) but also how people remember her

Because I know these things about my ICA, I’m able to determine that the right photographer to photograph me (and the way I want to photograph others) looks like this:

• Natural light—because artificial light can look fake, and because the equipment means a lot of glass, metal, wire, and synthetic materials that feel like clutter at a shoot and may one day end up in a landfill

• Props that feel like they came from the earth—natural shelves, wooden bowls, vases of flowers or botanicals, foods made from real, raw ingredients, and so on

• Clothing/wardrobe styling that doesn’t feel “loud”—so no neons or bold patterns like you might see at J. Crew—but instead soft, sold colors or more feminine and delicate patterns like small florals

… and I could go on, but hopefully you get the idea. If you know your ICA inside and out, you’ll not only be able to determine what she wants to feel, but what that looks like for her—and from there, select the right photographer for the job, and then offer more specific direction to your brand.

Put Together a Mood Board

Many of my clients approach me already armed with a Pinterest board full of inspirational photos. This is a great launchpad for the final step, which we will cover next.

A mood board can be put together easily following just a few easy steps:

1. Write down all the words you’d use to describe your brand (modern, rebel, classic, indie, custom, edgy, playful, etcetera)

2. Write down all the feelings you know your ICA wants to feel (refreshed, motivated, sexy—see the list I included above for more inspiration)

3. If you don’t already know your brand colors/if you haven’t worked with a graphic designer, do some research on color science (Google “emotions associated with color” to get started), and see what colors correspond to the things your ICA wants to feel. Write these down, also (2-3 colors is good)

4. Write down different ways to describe your industry/adjacent industries. For example, if you do hair for weddings, you could write down both “wedding hair stylist” and “wedding makeup artist” or “wedding flowers” or just “wedding vendors”

5. Using the four separate lists you’ve created, start running searches on Pinterest for images that use a word or two from each column. For example, “Purple rebel sexy hairstyles” or “Pink custom cozy invitations”

6. Keep mixing and matching until you find photos you like, and start pinning them to a Pinterest board you call “Brand Mood Board”

Generate a Style Guide

This last part is crucial—most people will stop at the mood board, but you need to take it one step further.

A style guide is a whittled-down version of what you put together in your mood board, supplemented with written descriptions from you. It should include:

1. A description of your ICA (including what she wants to feel and why)

2. The images from your mood board that BEST reflect your ICA, as well as exactly what you like about each image (for example, “I like how genuinely happy this image feels” or “This photo is super balanced but I don’t get the sense that it was overly curated”). At the end of the elimination process of which images to include, you should have a lot of images that “look good” together and tell a consistent story

3. Any brand-specific information your photographer should have (such as, “Never use the color red” or “We try to have a salute to coffee in every photo”)

4. Examples of photos you do not like or would never be able to use, and why

When & How to Use the Materials You’ve Put Together

Believe it or not, when you deliver your style guide to your photographer is key to getting the photos you want.

Most people will send over their style guide after the contract is signed and before the shoot… but you’ll get better results if you send it over before your initial consultation call.

There are two reasons for this: One, when you initially reach out to a photographer and schedule a call to connect and make sure you’re a good fit, the photographer is likely to be eager to book the gig. They’re going to want to be able to supply ideas and demonstrate an understanding of what you want so that you choose them over your other options, and if you give them materials to look over before the call, they’re likely to review them carefully and come to the call super prepared and familiar with your brand.

Two, this gives the photographer you choose the maximum amount of time to think about what you sent over and both come up with ideas and reach out with follow-up questions. If you send over the style guide a few days before the shoot, it’s almost as short-notice as showing up the day of the shoot with the style guide in-hand; the photographer is basically going to be winging it at that point. But the more time the photographer has to notice inspiration that could help, remember backdrops or props they already have that could be useful, ask questions, and make suggestions, the better your shoot is likely to be for you in the end!

Conclusion

1. Remember that photographers don’t get a perfect shot every time they click the shutter

2. Plan ahead—make a shot list, mood board, and style guide before you ever reach out to the photographers you’re interested in

3. Always be thinking of your ICA. What’s her taste? What does she want? What’s her lifestyle, aesthetic, budget? There’s a lot of noise out there, and you can clear out a lot of it simply by knowing your ICA really, really well

4. Give your photographer all the information that matters to get the shot, while leaving plenty of room for their expertise and creative eye. This includes where your photos will be used, the mood you want to evoke, your brand colors, and information about the client you’re trying to reach, but not necessarily how you’d stage each shot

Be sure to come back and tell the group how these tips worked for you! Join the Facebook community and tell your story!