Branding Photography
Stag & Bird Photography, a prominent brand photographer in Kansas City, specializes in crafting unique, sharp, and captivating brand photos. Brand photography, as expertly curated by Stag & Bird Photography, encompasses a bespoke collection of images designed to symbolize companies and establish distinct visual identities for marketing materials. This comprehensive range includes product photos, team headshots, social media and blog images, as well as visuals for digital or print media, provided they remain exclusive to the brand.
While some businesses resort to stock photography—utilizing licensed images from a library to represent their brand—this approach has its limitations. Depending on a pool of generic photos accessible to anyone may fall short of creating a lasting visual impact.
Engaging the services of Stag & Bird Photography not only ensures a professional touch but also guarantees a set of distinctive images. These experts play a pivotal role in curating an image library tailored to match the brand's unique styles, settings, and even colors, thereby offering a visually impactful representation that sets the brand apart.
Why Branding Matters
The world has never been more visual. It’s well known that the pictures on your website can be the difference between a visitor clicking straight back to Google and staying to read on.
But did you know that even in social media, posts with pictures or visual media are much more likely to be shared?
Having the right photos makes such a huge impact, as it sets the tone and character of your whole business offering.
Are you sophisticated and stylish? Professional and accomplished? Approachable and affordable? Your pictures can make it clear without anyone having to read a single word.
But why can’t you just use stock photography? Well, of course you can! But there are a few big problems with using stock.
Firstly, it’s usually pretty obvious. Unfortunately, stock photography libraries are full of images that are very clearly staged. Nothing says “small” like an obviously stock photo.
Secondly, it can be hard to find something specific. If your work is in a niche area, you might struggle to find the perfect picture.
That often leads to people having to use more generic photos instead of something relevant to their industry. It immediately waters down the messaging, and makes it more obvious you’re using stock.
Thirdly, there’s no real connection. Stock photography is designed to be generic. If you are trying to create messaging with your imagery, it’s really difficult to do with stock.
Lastly, there’s nothing to stop someone else using the exact same photo. Or photos using the exact same models. And it’s pretty hard to stand out in a market where everything looks eerily similar.
Vision
The best thing about brand photography is that it’s unique to you and your business. But how can you be sure you’ll get fantastic photos?
The first step is to create a short brief. This will help you set out what you’re trying to achieve.
In your brief you should think about:
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Where you’re planning to use your pictures. Are they for your website, social media, blog posts, brochures, adverts - or all of the above?
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What type of photos you need. Do you need team headshots, personal brand photos, product pictures, office images?
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Who you’re trying to appeal to.
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What sort of messaging you want to show in your photos. Do you want a highly professional or an informal style? Do you want to be abstract?
Once you’ve got an idea of what you need, the next step is to find a personal branding photographer.
They will not only take the shots you need, but they’ll be able to help you organise and plan the shoot to make sure that you’re getting exactly what you need.
And planning the shoot is really, really important.
If you hire a brand photographer, they won’t just rock up to your offices with a camera. They’ll come armed with a plan so that they can get all the shots you need.
And on your end of things, it is really helpful to make sure you’ve got your offices and team ready and prepared for your personal brand photo shoot.
That means that anyone who’s going to be in the pictures has the right wardrobe and look.
It means that the space itself is clean, tidy and looking right for any office shots.
It means that any props, products or backdrops are set up and ready to go.