Start from the empty spaces, not the mood board
Open your website. Open LinkedIn. Open the deck you send to clients. Every place you currently have a placeholder, a stock image or an awkwardly cropped selfie is a shot on the list. Work backwards from those holes and the shot list writes itself.
This is the opposite of how most people prepare, which is to collect twenty moody images from Instagram and hope the shoot resembles them. References are useful, but only after you know what you need. Otherwise you end up with a beautiful set of wide, atmospheric frames and still nothing that fits a square LinkedIn avatar.
The brief template, copy this
| Section | What to write | Example |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Goal | One sentence on what these images must achieve | “Look credible to corporate buyers on a new website and LinkedIn” |
| 2. Audience | Who sees them and what reassures that person | “Heads of HR at 250-plus staff firms; they want calm and organised” |
| 3. Where each image goes | List every destination with its crop | Website hero 3:1, about page 4:5, LinkedIn 1:1, deck dividers 16:9 |
| 4. Shot list | Eight to fifteen specific frames, in priority order | Clean headshot, working-at-desk, on the phone, walking outside, hands on product |
| 5. Look and feel | Three references you like and one you do not | “Bright and warm, not the grey corporate look in this example” |
| 6. Locations | Your space, a studio, or a street that fits the brand | Office, then the arches near Regent’s Canal for the outdoor set |
| 7. Wardrobe | Two to three outfits, plus anything to avoid | Navy knit, white shirt, blazer; no fine stripes or big logos |
| 8. Practicalities | Date, budget, deadline, who signs off | “14 October, £900 budget, live by 1 November, I approve” |
That is the whole thing. Send it as an email, not a PDF, and I will come back with anything I think is missing before we set a date.
Be specific about where the images go, or the crops will fail you
Different platforms crop differently and unforgivingly. A website hero that spans the full width of a screen wants a lot of empty space on one side for headline text. LinkedIn crops to a circle, which eats shoulders. A conference programme will want a tight portrait with a plain background.
If I know all three in advance, I shoot each one for its final use rather than framing everything medium and hoping. It costs nothing extra on the day. Discovering it afterwards means either an unhappy compromise or a reshoot, and reshoots are the only genuinely expensive thing in this business.
Put the actual dimensions in the brief if your web designer has given them to you. A line saying “hero image 2400 by 800, text sits on the left third” is worth more than any adjective. I have reframed entire setups off the back of a sentence like that and the client got a hero image that needed no cropping at all.
Three references, and one you hate
Three is the right number. Twenty references average each other out into nothing, and a photographer looking at twenty images cannot tell which quality you actually responded to. Pick three and write one line under each saying what you like about it — the light, the posture, the colour, the fact that the person is not looking at the camera.
The image you dislike is the more useful half of this. “Not this grey, arms-folded, hotel-lobby look” tells me more in nine words than a whole board of aspirational photography. It draws a boundary, and boundaries are what make a shoot efficient. Say it plainly, even if the photograph you are rejecting is somebody’s portfolio work. Nobody is offended.
Locations: your own space usually beats a studio
Most personal branding shoots do not need a studio. Your own workspace tells a truer story and costs nothing to hire. A ceramicist’s studio in Hackney Wick, a coffee roastery in Bermondsey, an architect’s desk with drawings on it: these all photograph better than a white cyclorama, because they carry information about what you do.
What I would use a studio for is the clean headshot set, and even then a plain wall and a window in your office often does the job. If you work from a small flat with one north-facing window, that is when a studio earns its money. Say so in the brief and we will plan around it.
Wardrobe, and the thing nobody warns you about
Two to three outfits is right for a half day, four to five for a full day. Solid colours in mid tones photograph best. Fine stripes and tight checks can shimmer on camera, big logos date fast, and brand-new clothes often look stiff. Bring a spare top; London weather and coffee both have opinions.
- One outfit that matches how you actually dress for clients
- One slightly smarter, for press and speaking bookings
- One relaxed, for social and about-page use
- Layers you can add or remove to make one setup look like two
Guidance on colours and necklines carries over from headshots, so my note on what to wear for a headshot is worth five minutes before you pack.
Say in the brief that you hate being photographed
Most founders do. About four in five people I photograph tell me within the first ten minutes that they are terrible in front of a camera, and they are almost always wrong. What they mean is that nobody has ever given them anything to do.
If you flag it in the brief, I plan around it: start with the working shots where you are occupied, keep the first twenty minutes deliberately low stakes, and leave the straight-to-camera portrait until you have relaxed. That one line in a brief changes the running order of the whole day and produces noticeably better pictures. It is not a confession, it is useful information.
What I’d tell a founder over coffee
Write the eight sections in one sitting and do not polish them. Prioritise the shot list ruthlessly — the top five images will do ninety per cent of the work, and everything below number ten is a bonus. Then book a half day rather than a full one for your first branding photography shoot, see what you actually use after three months, and brief the second shoot from evidence instead of guesswork.
One more thing: ask for the files tagged and sorted by destination rather than as one dump of 400 frames. If you plan to keep posting, a monthly content package tops the library up without repeating the whole exercise. And if all you need is a clean portrait for LinkedIn, a headshot session from £150 is the honest answer rather than a full branding day.
Shoots run all over the city, though most start close to the studio in central London. Send the brief over whenever it is ready. Drop me a line and you’ll know quickly whether half a day covers it or the full one is worth booking; replies go out inside one working day.