Booking a professional photoshoot is a necessary investment for any emerging brand, but it’s easy to make costly mistakes in the beginning and end up with a folder of imagery that you never use. In this blog post, I’ll show you how to leave the guesswork behind and determine what kind of imagery will work best for your business so you can actually get the results you want.

With advice on the brief, brand storytelling and the types of imagery that compel your customers to buy, these are the steps you need to be following to guarantee a folder full of assets that you’ll be able to use again and again.

Step 1 - know who you are

The first step of any visual or branding process is to know exactly who you are and what you sell. Before you start working on a brief (more on that later) you need to know what problem you solve, for who, and how. The clearer you can be on how you want your customers to feel, the experience you want them to have and the story you want to convey in all of your marketing, the better the final shoot results will be. I can’t stress this enough - you need to know your brand personality.

It’s also important to stay true to that in the face of popular trends. It’s easy to feel like you need to be doing what everyone else is doing in order to be successful, but if the style you choose isn’t a true representation of who you are as a brand, it won’t make any difference. You need to embody your core values in everything you do, including your imagery.

One of my longest standing clients, Merchant Gourmet, is a good example of this. The key goal for every shoot is to communicate the simplicity and ease of their grains and to ensure they are always visible in the recipe. The images are never over complicated or overcrowded, and the images are always light and bright with beautiful vibrant food doing the talking. This helps us to put the blinkers on when trends come along and know that every image we create is built on strong brand foundations.

How to actually get what you want from a photoshoot by Samantha Couzens Photography

Another example is Peter’s Yard, whose brief centred on the concept of ‘unhurried pleasure’. You can read more about that shoot and see the images here.

Step 2 - use some quick tips and tricks to get good results

As a general rule, the aim of any shoot should be to create images that make your customers want to buy from you. And, considering 95% of your customer’s purchasing decisions are made emotionally, the way to do this is to tap into the subconscious mind of your customers. Here are some quick ways to do that:

Use images that make sense

Using imagery that mimics real life settings, with props that are accessible and recognisable, helps your customers imagine themselves using your product / eating your food.

Use images that communicate sensory experience

Tapping into the 5 senses (sight, sound, smell, taste, touch) helps people to create positive associations and trigger their hunger cues. Creating imagery that captures the key USP of your food - gooey, crunch, sweet, salty etc. - is a powerful way to hook the attention of potential buyers. Just think how you feel when you see an ice cold drink on a hot day, with condensation trickling down the side of the glass and the ice cubes clinking quietly. Thirsty, right!?

Use images that are emotionally engaging

Images created with a story, or a feeling, in mind, be it nostalgia, a sense of calm, or post dinner party vibes, will connect far more powerfully with your audience than pretty pictures for the sake of it.

Step 3 - put all of it into a good brief

There is no point doing all the branding work if you don’t clearly communicate this to your photographer in a detailed brief. The better the brief, the better the results. As a general rule you should include the following:

Basic info - name, job role, company name, the product, any deadlines / time constraints, budget, location (if applicable) etc.
Outline the goal of the shoot - what is it you want to achieve? Is it for a specific campaign?
Give some context on the brand overall, the the product you’re selling, and the target audience
List the expected deliverables from the shoot (ie. the number of images, GIFs, videos you need). You’ll also need to detail where you intend to use those images, and any necessary specifications.
Priortise that list with your need to haves at the top, followed by your nice to haves
Supply some styling notes and / or example images
Run the brief by others in your team, double checking details like specifications and shot list to make sure all needs are covered

If you’re stuck when it comes to writing a brief or need some guidance to ensure you don’t forget anything, you can download my free guide here. It will help you pull everything together and will guarantee you a realistic quote too.

Download the guide for free