A step by step of what to expect when you book your first personal brand storytelling shoot. From enquiring and planning, to what happens on shoot day, this guide will help prepare you (and hopefully ease any pre-shoot worries!). You’ll also find some FAQs on the Personal Brand Photography page.

What is Personal Brand Photography?

This may be a good place to start! Personal brand photography is ideal for creative business owners who want to showcase their brand personality across their website, social media, and marketing, in a curated and professional style. It helps build trust with clients by capturing the human behind the brand, from day-to-day running of the business and creative process, to headshots and portraits.

1. You Reach Out to me

You’ve been feeling held back by your images for a while now, your profile pic is years out of date and doesn’t really feel like you anymore (our styles change, maybe our hair and laughter lines too!). You’ve got an exciting event coming up and they ask you for some images for their marketing to help tell your business story but all you have is rushed snaps taken on your phone which don’t do your brand justice. You’ve decided it’s time to do something about it as you’re ready to feel excited about sharing your brand story.

You’ve maybe found me via a friend or instagram and had a wee look at my portfolio and packages, and you decide to fill in my booking form. You’ve taken the first step!

2. I’ve got mail (the booking process)

“Ooh who’s this??” is usually my immediate thought when I receive a booking enquiry. I’ll take a look at your answers, your socials, website and check we’re a good fit and that our availability matches. (I’m usually booking around 8 weeks ahead).

I’ll get back to you with available dates, my shoot guide, terms and conditions, and confirm the details of the package you’re interested in. If you’re happy with all of that then a £50 deposit is required to secure the booking and I’ll send you a link to my brand discovery questionnaire.

3. I learn your brand story

My discovery questionnaire is designed for me to get to know and understand your brand. If you’d find it easier to talk through it we can organise a call to go over the questions.

We’ll go through your brand values, ideal customers, how you run your business, your creative process, and day to day activities.

You’ll also be able to tell me which types of shots you’d like; brand storytelling portraits, headshots, action shots, team shots, interiors, custom stock images (like the ones I took for myself that are in this article).

If you have ideas for types of location, outfits and other details you can add them in too.

4. Collaborative Planning Time

I’ll take some time to go through your answers and see what we need to organise - if you need location ideas, do we need to book hair/make up (entirely up to you!)?

We’ll make use of Pinterest and share Google docs to streamline the process, I’ll get them set up and send you an invite. With Pinterest you can get pin happy and add any examples of types of shot/poses/vibes you love. As for the Google doc, this will be our shot list for the day. I’ll translate your questionnaire answers into a comprehensive spreadsheet - with columns for numbers of shots, location, examples and notes. You can then adjust and add to it (look out for questions in the notes section).

5. Preparation

The Google doc shot list will also help us figure out anything else that needs prepared. For example we might need to pick up some flowers, or I may be bringing along some additional props.

If I’m coming to your studio for the shoot then you may want to tidy up anything that you don’t want seen in the pics. Don’t worry about it being perfect though, it’s your workspace and your customers will want to see the authentic you! If you do have any wee jobs you’ve been meaning to do for ages, many of my clients have said it’s a handy deadline to give them the motivation to get them done.

We’ll have spoken about outfits that reflect your brand so make sure you have these ready to go with any extra layers so we have plenty of options. It’s helpful so you have variety in your final image gallery to give it increased longevity.

Depending on the type of action shots we’re aiming to capture for your business you may need to prepare some products ahead to various stages to help keep things running smoothly. For example; making soaps ready to slice, baking a cake ready to pipe icing on, ceramic pieces ready to glaze etc.

6. Shoot day

Eek! Today’s the day! On shoot day we’ll have arranged a time and place to meet and I’ll arrive with my camera and bag of photography bits. We’ll have our reference images and shot list on hand and make our way through this at a relaxed pace.

I usually start with some actions, focused on your hands (if this is a shot type you’ve requested) so you can get used to the camera being in your space but not worry about what your face is doing. I find this helps as you can get used to me being around while you’re busy with a familiar activity. From there I’ll guide you through different poses (often by demonstrating for you to copy, sometimes just directing).

Throughout the shoot I’ll show you the back of my camera to show you how fab it’s all looking. We’ll stop for outfit and scene updates (e.g your making space becomes an order packaging station) and make sure we’re ticking everything off before any location changes.

If we’re doing headshots I often end on these because I find you’ll be most relaxed at this point in the shoot and this is when I’ll be up closest with the camera.

During the shoot, if you want a break at any point please don’t hesitate to say. I try and do the same as I’m terrible for remembering to hydrate once I get into photographer mode!

7. After

You’ve done all of your part so let me get on with mine. I’ll send over a couple of previews within a day or so of the shoot just to check you’re happy with the editing style. Once you’ve approved that I’ll get your full gallery beautifully edited (within 2 weeks, usually quicker).

You’ll receive a link in your inbox when it’s ready which will ask for an email to access (you are welcome to share with your friends and family though!). Here you will find your gorgeous new images, ready to download in two size options - web ready and high res (for print).

Now you can update your website, your profile pics and share to socials. Remember to tag me so I can share! I love seeing your pics out in the wild, it’s one of my favourite parts of my job. You’ll finally be ready for those exciting opportunities with a library of images waiting to be used.

I think that just about covers everything! If this sounds like the shoot for you, you can head over to book now, or if I’ve missed something, drop me an email at hello@jillyjilly.co.uk.

You can find my packages here or check out my work here.

What Happens When You Book A Personal Brand Shoot?