What to look for in a Brand Photographer

Choosing the right photographer for your brand is not an easy task. How do you know who will suit you and your style in the best possible way?

There are millions of photographers out there, all with an individual style, so you need to be sure to find the right photographer for you. Each photographer has their own creative style, which can be described as their own recipe of ingredients that they put together, in order to achieve the final look in their photos.

A photographer’s portfolio is the best way to explore and understand their creative style and method of work. From this you may see a unifying theme (if they are good, they will have a repeatable style that they can achieve over and over) or industry they’ve addressed, or a specific medium or even type of locations they use.

When looking through the photographer’s creative work you will be able to see if their style suits what you are after for your own brand, or find out if they’ve taken photographs of a similar business to yours. Below we’ve made a list of the important qualities that you should be mindful of when choosing your photographer:

When assessing photographer’s portfolio, take notice the following:

lighting - do you like the photographer’s choice of lighting techniques? Those might be for example: studio lighting, natural lighting, back lighting, spot lighting, night lighting, lots of shadows, soft and feminine, bold and confident. Each lighting style communicates different mood, and you should choose one that most suits the brand you want to have for yourself!
locations - where does the photographer usually takes their photos? Indoors, outdoors, at the studio, on location such as fancy hotel, a cafe, client’s office, in various worldwide destinations? This will give you clues as what you can expect to get from your shoot. Would you like a studio based shoot? Don’t hire a photographer with portfolio full of location photos as most likely, they won’t be able to cater for your requirements. Would you like a fun brand shoot around town but you can only see studio set-ups? The likelihood is, they are not trained, comfortable or experienced in the type of shots you are after.
subjects - who is the subject of your photographer’s photos? Would you like an editorial brand photo-shoot but the portfolio is full of babies and happy couples on their special day? This means that this photographer is not right for you as he or she caters for a different industry and doesn’t have the right skills and experience to help you prepare for your shoot. Would you like a product or food photo-shoot and someone is recommending their wedding photographer friend as a good person for you to approach? Stay away, they won’t be experienced in taking the photos you require!
creative style - looking for a fun and emotive shoot, that showcases you personality but you can only see staged portraits, or perhaps high-fashion editorial photos in the portfolio? This photographer is not trained or comfortable directing emotions into their photos, so you’ll end up with something that isn’t right for your requirements. You might get beautifully set-up images with all the right lighting and styling, but if you’re after communicating who your personality and who you are, those won’t be right for your brand.
editing style - how would you like your photos to feel? Various feeling in photos can be added / communicated through editing style. Through post-production, photographers are able to add drama to the photos (this is done by pulling the contrast and shadows up). Or you might be after a soft feminine look (this can be achieved by pulling the contrast down, and adding soft gradients into the pictures). Whatever it is, take a good look at the photos in the portfolio and decide, if this photographer’s style is what you’re after. Editing style is not up for your choosing and is based on personal taste and artistic style of the photographer in question, so it is important that choose a photographer whose editing style you admire as they won’t be happy if you’ll ask them to change their style to choose your liking.

At Visuable, we’ve worked with 200+ businesses across health and wellness, fitness, beauty, creative and business support industries, so we have all the relevant experience serving clients within those sectors. We love shooting in natural light, on location, the more fancy and creative, the better. We love directing emotions into photos and our style can be described as fun, colourful and emotive, capturing your personality through each image taken, whilst creating images that reflect the hearts and souls of our client’s brands. Those who insist they hate having their photo taken are the clients we love shooting the most because they end up having such a great time and nine times out of ten, they don’t want the day to end!

When assessing photographer’s approach, take notice of the following:

Your chosen photographer should be able to offer your support before of your shoot. You would not want to meet them for the first time, when they arrive at your house with the camera, asking you what pictures you would like them to take.

A good photographer should offer you a pre-shoot consultation, so that you can meet each other, have a chat, discuss ideas, concepts, goals, concern and anything that might be on your mind.

A great photographer would also offer additional resources and recommendations. For examples, we offer our clients a style preparation guide which we’ve put together, to guide them through their preparations. We also offer a 1-hour consultation to discuss concepts, locations, ideas, outfits, props, any extra people that we might need at the shoot and anything else that might be unclear. We then send our clients a full photo-shoot plan, so that they know exactly how to prepare beforehand. We also send our clients a list of trusted stylists and make-up artists that we’ve worked with, so that they can reach out to people with experience, should they wish for extra support.

When assessing photographer's credibility, take notice of the following:

Just like when searching for a hotel when going on holiday we like to check reviews and images from people who have already stayed there. You would want to check photographer’s reviews and testimonials ahead of the shoot, so that you can get an insight to how it’s like to work with them. Previous customers insights will give you a good grasp of how the experience might be like, and it’s something that you should assess before making the final decision.

We love asking our clients for testimonials after their shoot - not only this helps us with our credibility, but also we’re able to find out if the experience our client’s had was as we anticipated. We always take our client’s feedback on board and improve anything that they wish they have had at their shoot, but we have not thought about supplying. Now, with over 200 shoots under our belt, we are pretty sure we’ve nailed every little detail!