Locations are key
What do successful storefront businesses and portrait sessions have in common?
Location, location, location
There are a lot of ingredients needed to create a valuable branded lifestyle portrait session.
Preparation and strategy.
The right mindset when in front of the camera.
Activities that resemble how you live and work on a day-to-day basis.
Outfits that illustrate how you present yourself to your audience.
The one that many speakers, consultants, trainers, and other expert-based business owners sleep on is location.
Location helps create a greater context into who you are, who you serve and why you do what you do. It’s the icing on the cake with regard to your personal brand.
For example, I’m a NYC kid who grew up in Astoria.
Fire escapes. Stoops. Graffiti. Pre-war apartment buildings. Bodegas. Those locations are what best encapsulate where I come from and where I currently live.
And that’s why I’ve had my personal branded lifestyle portraits captured in these locations.
What if I decided to create an entire image content portfolio in the middle of a cornfield? Yeah, the expressions I make are genuine. The clothing and activities I’m engaged in - yeah, they all make sense.
But, the location is not quite right.
In order to truly understand me, you need to see where I come from. It helps round out my personality by providing added context for my audience.
And that’s what I impress upon every client who sets foot in front of my camera.
One client who completely understands the importance of location is fellow NY’er, Howie Kra.
While he currently lives in Florida - we did a branded lifestyle portrait session there last year - to capture what his world looks like now, he expressed to me back then that he would love a session conducted in his hometown.
Far it be for me to stand in the way of someone else’s sunshine, right?
So recently, we made that happen.
During our strategy call, he mentioned several words that helped shape the direction of the entire session:
Gritty. Edgy. Health. Water.
Since him and I are cut from a similar cloth, that’s all we needed to help identify the types of locations that would truly bring out and accentuate his personality and brand for his emerging health coaching business.
Here’s a look at some of the magic we created together based on those 4 words.
For the “gritty” shots, I suggested that we leverage some stoops and fire escapes as well as a scaffold, since they’re everywhere in this city:
Next, we were on the hunt for some edgy looks - nothing says edgy like some good ol’ fashioned graffiti:
Howie is a runner in addition to coaching people on health, so I naturally suggested we go to a local park that has a track to capture some of that type of magic:
When we shot in Florida, water was a big part of the session. I wanted to capture what the water up here looks like, while also showing off some NYC bridges that creates an additional contrast to the Miami landscape we shot in the previous session:
After hustling around Astoria for a couple hours, we accomplished what we set out to do. Once the photos were delivered and reviewed, Howie and I sat down to talk about the experience.
Just a couple characters shooting the breeze, right? :)
Turning to you…
If you are confused as to the types of locations that would make sense for your next branded lifestyle portrait session, I completely understand, and you’re not alone.
And I’m here to help.
Before I ever pick up a camera before a session, those types of logistics are tended to so that we create the types of images that make the most sense for you, your business and brand.
Schedule a call with me and let’s see if we’re a fit to work together and make it happen.
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