"Yes and..." the s**t out of your next portrait session

Looking to maximize the value of your next branded lifestyle portrait session?

Approach it with a “yes and…” mindset.

One of the pillars of improv is built on the philosophy of “yes and…”

When someone in a scene states something, it’s accepted as truth. The “and” part of this principle means to build on that reality that has been set.

During a recent Zoom meeting, the “yes and…” game was played between attendees, which led to some ridiculously funny, back and forth banter. 

As I edited the photos captured during that meeting, I thought more about the “yes and…” philosophy and how it directly applies to lifestyle portraits and visual variety. 

God forbid I don’t try to tie everything back to photos, right? :) 

While there are absolute, must-have photos on your list to capture - headshots, website-specific photos, promotional-specific photos, etc. - based on your specific needs, there are moments during every session where a random idea or concept comes to mind based on your outfit, activity in which you’re recreating in front of the camera, and the location in which you’re shooting.

Rather than wave it off as unnecessary or overkill, lean into it and see what it looks like on the screen. 

Why? 

Visual variety in your image content is valuable currency. 

For example, let’s say you plan to capture lifestyle portraits of you working on your phone. 

Your photographer captured a wide shot, medium shot and close-up photo from one vantage point where you can clearly see that you’re engaging with your phone in a work capacity. 

That checks the initial box, sure.

But, what if they then moved themselves to another vantage point, say from your left side and captured a similar variety of photos from that position? 

Next, they moved from that position to capture the same combination of photos and activity from the other side. 

You might be saying to yourself, “who the hell needs that many photos of working on a phone?”

No one! But, that’s not the point of this additional work.

The goal is to give you visual variety in order to choose the best option for a particular need when you need to grab a photo of you working on a phone. 

And rather hiring a designer to work with what you have, which might potentially mean a lot of extra work in Photoshop, you’ll have an arsenal of options that’s ready-to-implement straight from your content portfolio.

But, if you didn’t “yes and…” in that moment during your portrait session, you’d be stuck with working with the initial photos that were taken. 

For speakers, authors, consultants and other expert-business owners who’ve created promotional videos, you’re familiar with the concept of B-Roll. 

Do you remember how much B-Roll your videographer captured of you during that shoot? 

Do you also remember how much of that B-Roll ultimately ended up in the final video?

20%? 10%? Less%? 

It’s not about how much footage was captured.

It was all about the diversity from shot-to-shot in order for the editor to select a unique and interesting 3 seconds from one clip, 5 seconds from another, etc. to enhance the visual presentation and amp up the production value of the overall piece. 

Take that same philosophy with your branded lifestyle portrait session and that “yes and…” approach will yield a more diverse and visually compelling portfolio overall. 

Your audience will appreciate your effort :)

This “yes and…” approach is a staple of how I conduct client portrait sessions with clients, and it’s led to very successful results.

If you’re interested in learning more about what a branded lifestyle portrait session with me looks like, you can check it out here.