EPISODE 10 OF THE MARKETING SOLUTIONS PODCAST: HOW TO PLAN A PHOTOSHOOT FOR YOUR BUSINESS + HOW TO TAKE YOUR OWN HIGH-QUALITY SHOTS
Sonya:
Today I'm here with [Sarah 00:00:32] from Gilbert House. Sarah and I recently did a photo shoot together, and we were having a conversation around, how do you actually hack your own photography if you don't have the budget to hire a photographer? Or if you are at the stage where you can hire a photographer, how do you get the most out of the shoot? Thanks so much for joining me, Sarah.
Sarah:
Such a pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Sonya:
So I think let's start with this idea that you do need to spend a fortune on having a photographer come in and do your brand photography. What are your thoughts around that as someone that is completely self taught?
Sarah:
Asking for a photographer or a photo shoot is like asking how long a piece of string is. You can pay the absolute budget level, which is your niece with an iPhone in your backyard, or you can pay for someone whose skills and experience is certainly worth the time and the money. They have put so much into their education, they have the world's best equipment, they've got the best backgrounds, all the right resources to make it unbelievably amazing. But for everyday run-of-the-mill, like a business like mine, I don't need a shoot quite like that. I'm sort of looking for something mid range. And I think a lot of people fear that a photo shoot with a photographer means top of the line. But also be conscious of quality and budget as a sliding scale.
Sonya:
Oh, absolutely. I mean, I've worked with photographers who sort of just fill in services with a company called Snappr, S-N-A-P-P-R.com. And they've been great, they've got me by. But I can say, working with you has been a totally different experience. That said though, I probably wasn't ready to work with you until I became a lot clearer on my brand. And it's taken sort of two or three years for me to get to the point that I am clear on what I need out of a shoot. Like the colors, the style of photos that I'm after.
Sonya:
I don't know, I think people can dive into thinking that they need to go with a really high end photographer straight away. And if you have the budget to do that, awesome. Go and do it. But today we'll take you through, I guess, two different ways that you can go about things. One, trying to do some photography yourself with some friends, or two, actually working with a really great photographer. And what you need to communicate them to get the most out of your shoot so you're happy with it.
Sarah:
Absolutely. And I think starting with the first one, so that's that content hack moment. Your business is in a position where you're ready to move it forward. However, you're probably not earning the big Kardashian dollars. So it's making the most of the resources as you can to get by until you're ready to scale up and use a professional photographer. So I've actually got a few content hacks that I've pulled up and learned from, obviously, other people that I'd love to share with you and everyone today.
Sonya:
Yeah, awesome. So I guess first thing's first, if you are doing content hacks and doing your own photography, do you need a proper camera, or can you get by on your iPhone?
Sarah:
Look, if you'd asked this like five years ago, I would've said probably source a camera if you can. Now, the cameras in phones, some of them even carry 4k. So that's what a professional DSLR has in them. And I think that's more than enough for social content. And as you've spoken about on a couple of your other podcasts, is the more organic the content, the more it looks like it's been shot by a person not a company or a very high end advertising agency, the more everyday people will connect with it. So no, absolutely, I think using iPhones and Androids at this stage of your business is absolutely expected and a necessity.
Sonya:
So if you were a business owner looking to buy a new phone, and you're going to be filming a lot of content on it and doing photos, would you go for an iPhone or the Android?
Sarah:
Look, as somebody indoctrinated into the iPhone brand, the family ... I've had one, probably, 10-15 years. I always lean in towards the iPhone. But knowing what I know about phones and cameras and that sort of thing, which granted isn't all that much, but Android I think has a better camera. They've got bigger storage, so you can actually insert micro SD cards like you would into a digital camera, like a DSLR. And it can save all your photos that way. The resolution, so the quality of the photo, is much higher I think, if you're leaning towards Android. But that said, I love my iPhone, I use it for a lot of my work. So both are great.
Sonya:
Yeah. I don't think you're ever going to get me over to Android. I'm just hooked on my iPhone.
Sarah:
[inaudible 00:05:38] like trips me out. I'm just so Apple, it's not funny. But probably to my own detriment.
Sonya:
So I am a service based business, I need some photos. Where do I start if I'm going to hack it myself?
Sarah:
Yeah, cool. So first, I've got five things that definitely need to be considered. So you need to identify your brand's style for the content. So like the way that you would write a caption or the copy on your website or whatever for your pages, you need to consider what kind of style and tone the photography you create will set. So if you're a bright, airy, lovely, engaging, happy sort of brand and person, because you're a service based business or sole trader, it doesn't make a lot of sense to shoot your photography in a dark, dingy alleyway at 9:30 at night. You need to be out in the sun, you need to be walking around in a path, that sort of thing. So that kind of aspect to tone that comes through lighting and aesthetic is super important.
Sarah:
If you're a really polished, clean brand, you're going to have white walls or simple backgrounds as opposed to standing in front of a sign at the supermarket with all their pinboard messages and whatever. I think really clean backgrounds is first place I would start, for sure.
Sonya:
Yeah, definitely. And I think just on that note that ... I mean, I have a lot of clients, they're like, "Oh, you can edit up these photos, you can Photoshop it." I mean, Photoshop is great, but it is not a miracle worker. I think if you get the foundations right-
Sarah:
Absolutely not. And I've seen a lot of content come my way, and they have sort of said, the clients, just like, "Just Photoshop that out." To be honest, with Photoshop skills ... Photoshop's an amazing tool. But consider how much time that that contractor, that freelancer, that editor is going to charge you to fix relatively junky photos. You may as well pay to have it re-shot, or you need to take the time to re-shoot it, because you're going to end up paying someone to edit them so they look better. You know?
Sonya:
Absolutely. Time is money.
Sarah:
Absolutely. And getting it right the first time is a lot easier than paying someone to fix it.
Sonya:
Amen.
Sarah:
So to that, next tip would be to research, brainstorm, and benchmark content ideas. And I know you did this before our shoot, so I think you looked around on maybe Pinterest or general brands that you follow and admire and you created ... And this can inform the identity and tone of the photos. You looked at things that you like. So brands that you already follow and you're like, "I like this for this reason. And I like the way that this person sits or stands, or what they're wearing. The white shirt on the black background looks good to me." Or whatever that is for your brand.
So start by looking at who you already follow, because you like something about what they're doing. So hold them accountable as your benchmark, include them. And you can supply these to a photographer if you're later down the line. But look at it for your own style. If you're shooting this for yourself, try and emulate it. What has that person done that you like about it? "Oh, they're wearing a white shirt in front of a brick wall." Cool. So can you go find a white shirt, and have you got a brick wall? Go create that for yourself and emulate the things that you like.
Sonya:
Yeah, absolutely. And just full disclosure, guys, my research, it does not take long. We do shoot lists for clients all the time. Go to Pinterest and type in "corporate photo shoot" or "person in an office", whatever it might be. In addition to actually going and stalking those people that you admire. And for me, I just took a ton of screenshots and dumped them all in a document. And I did a bit of categorization around the different poses. So I think we had like a chair scene, we had some portrait shots, we had some movement shots in there.
And I think it really just helps you or your photographer plan out your shoot. Because if you get there and you're like, "Oh, just stand here and put my hand on my hip and do this," you don't really have any direction. I think it's very hard for both parties then to actually know what you want. The work's got to be done on the spot. It's not like a website where you can get to the end of it and go, "Oh, well actually, now I see that I don't really like it and I want to change it." It doesn't work that way. So I think preparation is key.
Sarah:
Absolutely. I think that's so true. If you're a little bit uncomfortable or maybe you're new to photographing yourself ... You know, I photograph people all the time. But when it comes to taking photos of myself, I'm less confident. So understanding what people I like are doing, some of the people I follow even on social, so I'm like, "Oh, she posed like that. She looked really powerful. She looked really strong. She looked like she knew what she was doing." So I just kind of copy it, because otherwise I feel like a super dork standing in my spare room holding up my camera trying to get the right tone for how I want to be seen. If you've got something to sort of look at and hold up as a benchmark. Absolutely.
Sonya:
I love it. Super dork.
Sarah:
I'm a massive dork.
Sonya:
Same, that's why we're friends.
Sarah:
The next thing, have a plan. You cannot run any business without a plan. So if you know that you're a light, airy, brand, and want to convey emotional intelligence, and highlight is a big part of it, don't do it at the end of the day. Don't wait till the end of the day when you get home from work. The lighting's really hard when you get home and it's dark and you're using the down-lights in your spare bedroom, and they make you look yellow, and there's shutters everywhere.
Head out on the weekend or finish work up a little bit earlier during the week and ensure that you get really good natural lights. It's so, so, so much easier to shoot in natural light than it is in ... Well, a studio light would be the secondary. But like people's home down lights in their kitchen or in their spare room or a lamp, they're not going to cut it. They make you look weird. They give you a really weird color because a lot of them are quite yellow or really white. And trying to recreate, it's just too hard. So absolutely go out into natural light, whether that's outside or in a room next to a big window. Absolutely use natural light for these photos. Biggest tip.
Sonya:
Yeah, 100%. And I think that that goes for whether or not you're doing your shoot yourself, with your niece in your backyard as you mentioned before, or if you are doing it with a photographer. So if you are booking a photographer in ... A lot of the shoots that I do, it'll be sort of around 10, 11, 12 o'clock in the morning so we get beautiful natural light. Because as we know in Melbourne, we do struggle with that from time to time.
Sarah:
Absolutely. And don't always think that ... There's certain times of the day ... This depends, obviously, on the season of the year. If it's in the middle of summer and it's midday, that sun is going to be absolutely scorching. It'll give you this really harsh blown out light. So go and stand in the shade. Make sure your whole body is in the shade. Make sure your shoulder's out of the sun, not part of you, and some part of you in the dark, because that then wrecks the balance. So make sure all your body's in the light or all of your body's in the shade. Big tip. Try not to wear hats, too. That's really challenging because they cast a shadow over your forehead and your eyes. And your eyes are the windows to your soul, so don't hide that under a bushel. Keep that lit up.
Sarah:
But it depends on the time of day and the season. But this beautiful time of day in the afternoon called golden hour, and it's when the sun goes down a little bit and it casts beautiful yellow sort of hue onto your body without it being too saturated. That is a great time of day to cast content. It doesn't give you a lot of time, because you've obviously got to get it before the sun goes down. But if you're looking at different times of day to shoot, sort of 9, 10 in the morning is pretty good. When the sun gets really high in the sky it casts really weird shadows, so then wait till the afternoon. So have a break over lunch, and then come back to it in the afternoon when the sun's moved a little bit from right overhead.
Sonya:
Awesome tips. I mean, if you're coming home from work in summer and you want to do a quick express shoot with that light going down, that would be the perfect time to do it. Alrighty, what's your next tip?
Sarah:
If you can, grab an assistant. So this is usually my boyfriend. I'm like, "Here, come hold this, stand here like that." And just sort of set it up. So what I used to do, is I would have the shot I want, I'd go have him stand where I needed my position to be. I'd shoot him, ask him to come and stand where the photographer had to stand, and I said, "This is what I want it to look like, hold it at this angle." And then I'd go stand where he was and he'd take the same photo. If I just hand over the camera to him, he sort of gets down low and shoots me from a really ugly angle. If you can show the person exactly what you mean by shooting them first, you're more likely to get the result you need and are looking for a lot quicker.
Sonya:
I've just had some serious flashbacks, too. My boyfriend and I were at Harry Potter World in England. And you know that shot that everyone gets where the trolley's going into the wall?
Sarah:
Yeah.
Sonya:
Oh my God, he just could not get it. He kept getting photos of like the walkway and other people and the drain. I had the biggest tanty. I'm not proud of it. I had the biggest tanty ever, because I'm a massive Harry Potter fan. And I took the most perfectly framed photo of him doing it. But do you think he could get one good one of me? No.
Sarah:
[inaudible 00:15:22] have way more practice. You just know all the things. And it's all about education. And try not to get frustrated because that's a way to end the shoot really quickly. If one of you cracks it, then the shoot's over and you have to try again at golden hour tomorrow. It's not easy.
Sonya:
Yeah, tolerance, patience, it's all key. And do you know what? On that note, maybe grab a girlfriend to do it. I don't know about you, but I feel like women just have a much better eye, if they're not professionally trained, for this kind of thing.
Sarah:
We just try a lot harder. You hand the phone to a stranger on the street and you're like, "Can you take a selfie of this?" Typically, if it's an older guy, much like my dad, he'll sort of take one photo. If you give it to a woman, like my mom, she will take 900 photos and hand it back. She'll be like, "There you go. There'll be something in there." You know? I think it's just a difference in meeting and exceeding expectations.
Sonya:
Yeah, exactly right. Exactly right. Okay. What is your next tip?
Sarah:
The very last one is to edit the imagery. So when you're editing, ensure that you've got an idea of where the content's going. So if it's a website, it needs to be shot wide and in landscape. If it's for Instagram story, it needs to be shot in portrait and close up. So be conscious when you're creating the imagery that you know where it's going. Right?
Sonya:
Oh my gosh, this is such a big thing. So we build a lot of websites at Kiss Marketing. And I'll say to clients ... Well actually, I used to say to clients, "Look, can you go and have a photo shoot done." And they'd just go off and book it and do it, right? And I'd get the photos back and they would be all portrait shots. So a lot of websites nowadays have these big beautiful full-width banners, especially for that main hero image when you first land on a home page. So please, if you are having a shoot done that you are going to be using images for a website, make sure that you get a lot of those landscape shots.
And I think something else to think about as well, is making sure you're not always standing right in the middle of those shots. So when you're looking at the image in thirds, pick where you're going to be standing. So you might in the left third or the right third, for example. And then what you can do with those images is that you can crop them and cut out the rest to actually use them for social media, and I guess portrait style shots as well. So yeah, just think about that. You will make your web designer's life so much easier if you get them a lot of landscape shots.
Sarah:
Absolutely. And I'd either say ... If you're doing your shoot yourself where you're working with a photographer, a photographer would typically know that if you're shooting for digital you'll need them in both landscape and portrait. If you're shooting for yourself on an iPhone or a tripod or with a friend, absolutely shoot almost every single shot in both landscape and portrait, because then you've got options. There's nothing better than receiving a big file as a designer, getting a big file of content from a client, being like, "I wasn't sure what you'd need, so I'm just going to give you everything."
As a designer, I would absolutely much rather you give me a hundred photos that I can choose from and pick the best out that'll fit and match where we're going, as opposed to getting three that you like that we can't really use because you're standing in the middle of the photo, like you said. Or you're standing at one side, but that's where the buttons have got to go. If I can flip it, great, but if I can't, you're going to have to do the shoot again.
Sonya:
So this might be a bit of a silly question. I feel like I should know the answer to this, but I feel like I get clients that send me photos all the time, even via text from their phone, and be like, "Put this on my website," and it's never high res enough. So if someone goes out and they take a landscape photo on the newest iPhone say, should that be high resolution enough for a website?
Sarah:
Look, it depends. Think about about how much space on the website it's going to occupy. If it's got a full header banner or if it's going to be like a profile picture on the "about us" page. So if it's the sort of header band, the best thing you can do is ... Particularly on an iPhone. I know the other ones, other phones that carry 4k, it's a little bit different. But the best thing that you can do to impact quality is to shoot it in good light. So if you've shot it in sort of darkened, crappy, dingy light, it pixelates a little bit. It goes a bit fuzzy. It also impacts on the filter that you put on it. So if you go in and use some of the, say, Instagram filters, that'll affect the quality a bit.
But also, the number one thing I find with most of my clients is how they transmit the image to me. So when you send it in a text message, it compresses it. So it squashes it all down, removes a lot of the data and rich information about it. So texting it is ... I hate it, don't do it. Don't text your clients stuff that they want on the website. Ask them to put it in something like a file sharing platform like a Dropbox. Or if you're close to them, get them to airdrop it to you where you send the files via Bluetooth. But put it somewhere so you don't compress it. Texting it isn't great because it squishes. And same for emails. You know how you can select small, medium, large, original size? Always send original size, because if you pick any of the others it'll compress.
Sonya:
Good tip. And I think another free file transfer system that we use a lot as well is wetransfer.com. So that'll actually send them a link in an email, and it'll say, "Sarah has shared a file with you. You have 24 hours to download it." And then it'll just take you a page to download that directly to your computer. And I think this ties in a lot when it comes to social media and websites and everything, if you are scheduling and editing images do it on your computer. It's so hard doing it from your phone, and it does really affect the quality of images.
Sarah:
Absolutely. And there's nothing more unappealing as an audience member, is someone on one of the platforms when you get something from a brand and it's pixelated, too small image. And you're just like, "Ugh." That negatively impacts upon the brand perception, right? So you've got to do your very best. If you're working really hard to make the world's most delicious cupcakes, and you get up at 4:30 every morning, and you do all the cooking and then you do all the cleaning, and then you post a crappy photo to social media. The only thing I saw of your day was a crappy photo. I have no idea how hard you work. So don't let down yourself and your business by posting subpar content. We know you can do better. You can do better. It's just learning the little skills and little tricks along the way to support and help that.
Sonya:
Oh, absolutely. And look, if you have found some user generated content on Instagram so that, say, someone's taken a photo of your delicious cupcake within your bakery and posted it on their own Insta, I recommend actually contacting them and asking them for the original. Please do not take a screenshot and then crop out all the information around it and then post it over to your Facebook. It turns out so blurry and it looks so bad.
Sarah:
Yeah, just send them a private message. "Hi, [Sophie 00:00:22:46], thank you so much for coming in to buy my cupcake. I love the photo. I'd love to share it with my audience. Would it be okay if I shared it? If so, could you please send the link in this file?" Sophie would be more than happy for you to share it, because she already loves your brand, your cupcakes, and your bakery. She shared. I, as a consumer, would be stoked if a brand asked me to share my content, just as long as they tagged me and said it was mine. That's fine.
Sonya:
Yeah, exactly. And I think it's another way to make your customers feel special and appreciated, and encourage them to keep creating that user generated content as well. I don't think a lot of businesses realize, it's these simple little tricks and tips that can make a big difference to your social media. And if that means that you're getting three or four great images from people that are already customers a week, how much time does that save you in terms of having a photo shoot down or scheduling out your own content? Half the work's already been done for you. Amazing.
Sarah:
Absolutely. You know, brands are as much as about owned content as they are about earned content. So you're right, it does cost a lot, and it can be a time and money investment to create your own content. But if you've got people and a tribe and a community that love and adore your service or your product, that are talking about you and sharing content about you, absolutely bring them in. They're part of the conversation anyway. So ask you if you can share. I'd be stoked. It'd be so nice for brands to share my content. It makes me feel special and it makes me feel visible. It makes me know that the stuff I'm doing has value to the people that I value.
Sonya:
Yeah. Excellent. So once I've done my photo shoot with my niece in my backyard, what is next? What do you recommend in terms of touching up photos, editing? Because personally, I hate when people just overlay a ton of filters.
Sarah:
Yeah. And it's challenging that way. So to me, the best thing that you can do to edit your photos is to shoot them correctly in the first place. And this comes back to the really good lighting and all that stuff, so you don't have to touch them up, so they're actually quite good. You can't put lipstick on a pig. You know, it's that same thing. So shooting it in the right way, that would be step one to avoiding hours and hours of editing. And people really do train their whole careers to be able to edit correctly. So slapping a really old clunky filter on something isn't going to save a crappy photo.
So the next thing that you would do is, I use ... Because of what I do, I use professional tools, the Adobe suite. So I will use things like Photoshop and Illustrator to adjust and amend things, light room. I think that there is enough apps out there for many, many people to start tweaking their own photos slightly. And remember, don't go too far. Always add a little bit and a little bit, as opposed to going really hard on that yellow filter. And I think taking it step by step would be good. There's heaps of tools out there, and I think that we could put a few links in the show notes. But don't over filter it. It really doesn't need to.
Sonya:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, for me, if I've taken a photo on my iPhone that I'm going to be putting up on social media that day, honestly, the only thing I'll touch usually is the exposure. So brightening it up a little bit, and that's pretty much it. I'll leave those heavy filters alone. I know there was a lot of research that came out from Instagram about the images with filters that would get the most engagement on them. I wouldn't even bother, to be honest. Just don't touch them.
Sarah:
To me, I find them a bit daggy now. I think that filters were amazing and cool and you'd use certain ones inside the Instagram app when it first came out. Everybody would filter with Valencia and whatever. But now I think it's a little bit dated, and I'd sort of steer clear of it. So you can actually update ... So I've got an iPhone, so I update some of the photos straight inside the pictures app. And you just go into it and you hit edit. And you're right, you just change the brightness or the saturation or ... You don't need to change that much to them. Just lighten it up a little bit, or hit contrast a little bit. Something like that. But really small adjustments is all you need.
Sonya:
Yeah, absolutely. And I think if you are a business that is established and you can afford to have a shoot regularly, do that. So for me, I'm at the point now where I'm like, "Well, I'm just going to book in a shoot every three to six months, and it will slowly but surely build up a massive content bank for me." So I've done a shoot ... I think this is my third or fourth shoot now. And when it comes to me scheduling my social media or creating a new resource or updating images on my website, I've got a whole bunch of images there that I can draw upon.
So if you are established, I do recommend that you find someone that you work well with. You could give Sarah at Gilbert House a ring. She's great, I've heard. And just book that in regularly. It'll go a really, really long way in terms of making your content seem professional. And also motivating you to keep up with your social media as well and update your website. If you've got that collateral there to work with, half the battle is done.
Sarah:
Absolutely. And consistency and balance. So you do seasonal shoots and you sort of vibe it for the winter or the summer months, whatever it is. But you're able to communicate a consistent message. So every time that there's a photo with that kind of background, immediately I know it's from ABC brand because it's got that background. So she's not doing the same thing in every photo, because boring.
But I think it's good to create that consistency, because if you're working so hard in and on your business already, the least you can do is a service to yourself, which is having an image bank. It saves you on the anxiety, and it also saves the pressure of feeling like you've got to get home every other night to get the photo done before the sun goes down. Just do one shoot, have a half day or a full day, whatever you need, collect a massive amount of them and have them sitting in a file on your computer that you just roll out when you need to.
Sonya:
Oh, absolutely. So many good tips. Thank you, Sarah. Do you have anything else that you'd like to add before we wrap it up?
Sarah:
I think investing in your brand can come across in many, many different ways. So that might be a bookkeeper, that might be a website, but I also think content offers that. So content marketing in the world of digital media, so, so important. So definitely consider what's in your budget. If you're not ready for a professional photographer, do some stuff, looking up a few things for yourself, and then get around it. Everybody owns a phone, you could absolutely do it. Content is for everyone.
Sonya:
Absolutely, and I think there's so much fear in digital marketing and content creation like, "Oh, I'm going to do it wrong." We all start somewhere, and you and I are both self taught in so many aspects of the services that we offer. And it's the best way to learn, honestly. So I think just dive in and get your hands dirty and start seeing what works for you in your business.