Increasingly I’m asked to create brand photography for companies. Usually, this is prompted by a website overhaul, meaning that new photos are needed to populate it, or because a member of staff has been charged with improving the company’s marketing, usually including an increased use of social media. Whatever the reason though, having a library of stock photos that you can use for a range of uses and in different circumstances is pretty essential these days.
The first step when I’m shooting a bank of brand images is to try to get a feel for what the company is, and the values it holds. From that, everything else flows. We might have a conversation about the kind of uses that they foresee the photos having; the channels they might be used on; the kind of message that they want to convey. My job is then to turn up and create the visual imagery that gets these messages across (sounds simple when you put it like that!).
A case in point is this set of photos taken for an architect’s practice with offices in both Liverpool and Manchester. As well as taking portraits of all the team members, I shot images taken around the offices that could give a sense of their design style. I concentrated on shape, colour, texture and details. If there were reflections, all the better! Of course, I was looking to make abstract images – eliminating clutter (which all offices contain), and focussing on the particular architectural detail I wanted to draw out. My intention was to make the images stand out and make the viewer think; I didn’t want them to look like ‘shots of the office’. I did include a few ‘at work’ shots (like the last two images in this post), which are great for populating website pages, but again I wanted to avoid the obvious and try to create something a little more graphic and eye catching.
Brand photography is an opportunity to say something different. It’s great to get to know a company, find out what make them tick and try to convey that in imagery. Want to talk about your own brand? I’d love to talk. You can get hold of me via the contact form or by calling the mobile number.
