If you're a photographer looking to brand your own business, this isn't that article. This one is for businesses defining how photography should represent their brand.
I'm busy... give me a quick summary!
- Finding fresh and original stock photos can be challenging and time-consuming.
- Define your photography style by considering lighting, locations, colours, and models.
- Create a shot list based on your key messages and search terms.
- Decide between using stock images or working with a photographer.
- Use high-quality stock libraries, choose the right search keywords, and utilise filters to find the perfect images.
Most businesses treat a brand photoshoot like a dentist appointment. You book it, you show up, you get through it.
The businesses that get remarkable images treat it completely differently. They plan before they arrive – defining their visual style, mapping out their shots, knowing exactly what story each image needs to tell and where it's going to live. The shoot itself is almost the easy part.
This guide walks you through how to build a brand photography style guide, plan your shot list, and make decisions about stock versus custom photography – so when you do book a shoot, you get everything you need and nothing you don't.
What does brand photography include?
Think about your brand. Only you know what you need to showcase your products, services or organisation.
Here's a few ideas that you might want:
- Headshots - corporate photography or candid photography
- Products
- Workspaces
- Lifestyle
- Abstract
- Services
- Events - like these for the University of Newcastle Open Days
- Personal Brand Photos for you and your team
In product photography, you must consider the colours you use, lighting, background and angles. In this instance, it's worth planning the shots with your marketing in mind, hiring a styling team, and custom backdrops. You'll then need custom flatlays, working (action) shots and product images.
Personal branding photography is not just about capturing images. It's about capturing your essence and what makes you authentic. It's a way to make you and your brand feel important and to connect with your audience on a deeper level.
Headshots don't cut it. They have evolved into personal branding photos. And, if you have employees, there's no reason your team can't join in.
By the end of this article, I will help you plan your brand photography style, search for stock shots, or work with you to create your brand photography.
So, grab a notepad and pen and get stuck in.
Determining if you need brand photography
Before you book a shoot, I want to point out that a shoot isn't for everyone and may not contribute to sales.
Sometimes, user-generated content (UGC) and product reviews work beautifully.
But, if you want to represent your brand as supremely professional and paint a story for your audience to engage with, it's worth continuing with the article.
Defining the purpose of your brand photography
Whether you're picking them for social media or popping them on your website, you will confuse yourself and your customers without having a plan. So, you need to note down the following:
- Who are you communicating with? Who's your who?
- What are you trying to communicate? Does the image support or amplify your message?
- Where is the image going to be used? Advertising, print design, website, social media etc.
Defining your brand photography style
When I work on a brand identity for my customers, I always outline the photography style so they know what to look for when they need images. Not all designers do this. If yours hasn't, start thinking about the following:
How do lighting and mood affect your brand photography?
Think about your brand's characteristics and tone. Do bright, well-lit images fit better? Or do the photos need to be dark and earthy?
Choosing the suitable locations and environments for your brand photography
What locations/environments/textures fit your brand's mood and style? I like to answer this question by considering an ideal office/home for your brand.
- Where's it located? Beach, country, suburbia?
- What's nearby? The beach, local cafes/restaurants or a ginormous park/nature reserve.
- What materials and objects feature — mud, rocks, wood, leaves, plants, concrete, brick, steel, technology, etc?
The importance of colours in your brand photography
What are your brand colours, and how can you feature them in your images? Backgrounds? Clothing? Products?
Selecting models for your brand photography
What type of people feature in your photographs? Picking models that reflect your ideal audience is a great way to make your content relatable. Look for models that fit the age, gender, lifestyle and fashion style of your target audience.
Here's a hot tip: sign up to Pinterest and search for images matching your brand's style. Create a new board and start pinning these images. This board can be shared with anyone involved in your brand photography, including photographers, to provide them with a clear understanding of your visual preferences. It also serves as a great source of inspiration for your photography project. You can effectively define and narrow your search by making a few style choices that cover a broad range of images.
Creating your photography shot list
Once you have defined your photo style and determined the purpose of your photos, you can create a shot list.
Find your key messages/website pages and decide how many photos you need. Then, note what types of images are appropriate and possible search terms to use to find them. It will give you a detailed shot list with ideas for search terms.
Stock images or a custom photoshoot?
Finding fresh, modern, candid, fit-for-purpose, and natural stock photos for your website or marketing is as much fun as dropping your phone in the toilet.
If you've ever browsed a stock library for images, you may have encountered uninspiring, traditional, and clichéd photos that your competitors have likely used. You were left with a mish-mash of pictures, hundreds of open tabs and no idea how to move forward.
You need to ask yourself: are the time and the money invested in finding the images worth it? There's a physical cost and a cost to your visual identity. And, sometimes, for a bit more money, you can work with a photographer to create images that are readily identifiable as belonging to your brand and more consistent with your visual identity.
Searching stock libraries is time-consuming, but the above tasks will save you time and keep your brand consistent.
Stock images are a great way to access high-quality shots, but depending on how many images you need, working with a photographer can work out cheaper. The advantage of this is you will have original images that look like part of a set.
You can supply the photographer with your list of shots and let them work their magic. A custom photo shoot can set your brand apart and allow you to inject even more of your personality.
How to find stock photography that fits your brand
If you only need a few images, here's how to get the search underway.
Selecting a high-quality stock library for your brand photography
Don't waste time looking over cheese-filled, low-quality stock libraries. Some great ones are out there—even free ones for when your budget is just kicking in.
My favourite free stock libraries
- Unsplash Over 2,000,000 images
- Foodies Feed
- Rawpixel – A mix of free and paid-for illustrations and photography
Free stock libraries are fantastic, but can have limited options, pushing you towards paid stock libraries to help you complete your list.
My favourites are iStock and Adobe Stock. They have enormous ranges and also cover illustrations and mockups. Getty is expensive, but the go-to for unusual/celebrity images.
Choosing the right search keywords for your brand photography
Choose a related word to the image you need, like 'fish', and if you can't find something immediately, add some related words, such as 'purple fish aquarium'. Use the search function like Google and try different combinations until you find something that gives you a picture you love.
Use filters & similar image suggestions
Most of the above have a filter system, where you can narrow your search to include people or not, add colours close to your brand, alter the depth of field, landscape/portrait and even gender. Some search bars allow you to add the search terms you don't want to see.
Find an almost perfect pic, but the angle is all wrong? Some stock libraries will enable you to search for similar images or even more photos by the same photographers or models, allowing you to find pictures of a similar style across your project.
Choosing the best photographs for your brand
If you've chosen to stick to stock, download some watermarked images, send them to your designer, or try them on your website. This way, you can see if it works in the space and makes sense when you see it with the copy.
The same goes for a photo shoot; having low-res, unedited images to see how things look will allow you to pick out all the needed photos.
Struggling to pick the perfect image for your brand?
Look for the image that communicates to your audience. People relate to people, so pictures of people often get a better response than objects or landscapes.
Enhancing your brand photography through editing
Your photographer will edit them to look similar to the style you highlighted earlier.
If you have photo editing software – like Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom or Affinity Photo 2 – you can edit the images when you've picked them and downloaded them from a stock library.
A list of tweaks to improve your brand photography
- White balance – alter the warmth/coolness of the image so it matches
- Add filters & effects – duotones (think original iPod ads or Spotify) or black and white
Once you've edited and selected your final images, back them up. Set up a folder on your hard drive or server and store them all there. Name it something sensible so you can find it again easily. A structure like: Snapper Studio > Assets > Photography > Website works well. Keep both the originals and the edited versions.
Store your brand guidelines, logos, graphics, other photos, videos and podcasts in the same assets folder. It's an effortless way to keep everything vital in one place.
Frequently Asked Questions
What makes good brand photography?
Good brand photography is intentional, consistent, and aligned with your brand strategy. It tells your story, connects emotionally with your audience, and follows a defined style guide covering lighting, composition, colour grading, and subject matter. It's also repeatable and fit for use across multiple campaigns and years.
How do I create a brand photography style guide?
Define your visual direction by gathering reference images, setting rules for lighting, colour palette, composition, and subject matter. Create a photography style guide as part of your brand guidelines so every shoot stays consistent. Document everything in a photography style guide and include it in your brand guidelines so every future shoot stays consistent.
Should brand photography be in my brand guidelines?
This is so important. Yes, your brand guidelines should include a photography direction that covers style, tone, colour treatment, and composition rules. This ensures consistency whether you are shooting in-house or working with external photographers.
How do I keep my brand photography consistent?
Consistency comes from having defined rules before you shoot. Document your lighting preferences, colour palette, locations, composition style and subject matter in a photography style guide. Share it with every photographer, designer or content creator who produces images for your brand. Without it, every shoot produces something slightly different – and that inconsistency erodes your visual identity over time.
