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John DeMato Blog

Welcome to the Deliver Magic blog, where experts who speak, coach, train, consult, and write books will find actionable insights to elevate their personal brands through visual storytelling. From strategy tips and branding photography to live event coverage and storytelling techniques, discover step-by-step guides designed to help you align what you say with how you show up in photos. Get ready to unlock the magic behind creating a cohesive visual identity that drives engagement, builds credibility, and inspires your audience. #DeliverMagic

Branded Lifestyle Portraits...for a bar?

 

Branded lifestyle portraits…for a bar?

 
 

They’re a service-based industry - they gotta show ‘em how the sausage is made, too :)

 

Back in 2017, I was walking down Broadway in Astoria, and noticed that Scorpio, the old Croatian bar, apparently changed owners. 

While looking through the garage door-style, glass window out front, I could see all the way through the bar.

It had an interesting Coney Island vibe to it, complete with a cool mural of a fortune teller looking through a crystal ball. 

I thought to myself that this would be a cool place to drink. Days later, I tried the place out for the first time, and since then, Madam Maries has been my go-to, local bar. 

But, the bar is more than that to me. 

Over time, it’s become my official second office, social club, and on some really bad days, my therapy session - although, I’m sure I share the latter with many, many other locals.

Recently, I was approached by management to help them create an image portfolio of visual assets that they can use to help beef up their online presence - specifically, their social media accounts. 

It was a no-brainer - I was in before they finished the ask. 

Now, they knew why they needed the assets, but they had no idea what they specifically wanted or even how to achieve it. They just wanted a collection of cool images. 

Sounds exactly like my usual clientele 😉

Cool - the why was on them - that what and how was on me.

Much in the same way that I approach a client portrait session, I devised a shot list for Madam’s. 

Instead of laptops, whiteboards, IMAG’S, books, Zoom links, and 800 outfit changes, we’re working with popcorn machines, beer taps, strainers and musical bingo tickets.  

While the tools of the trade, people and activities captured in front of the camera were vastly different, the goal of the session, ultimately, was the same: 

Give their audience a fly-on-the-wall experience of what it’s like to be in this world through high-quality photos. 

As a result, we needed to highlight the space on its own, the drinks served, and patrons enjoying those drinks and atmosphere while participating in the activities held in the bar. 

With that in mind, I needed the space to be empty for half the session, and the other half with patrons. 

The trick was that the patrons needed to be cool with a camera pointed at them, which is no small feat since people don’t expect this when entering a bar.

So I suggested to Aaron, the manager (and best bartender in the city), that he invite locals in for the second half so that I wouldn't have to worry about pissing someone off. 

Once he agreed, we were off to the races. 

During the first half of the session with an empty bar, I spent time shooting beauty shots of the space, including the storefront, decor inside, backyard area, and, even some of the art that patrons drew on cocktail napkins - I thought that was a nice touch :)

Empty space photos like these offer their social media team creative latitude when creating digital flyers used to promote upcoming specials and events, as well as give folks a true sense of the space, so I made sure to pad the portfolio as much as possible with these images. 

Next on the list was to capture the bartenders whipping up the cocktail menu drinks. It is a bar, and people do drink here, so you know, it’s kinda important:

They do look tasty, don’t they?

Hopefully, tasty enough to entice folks to come on in and try them out for themselves the moment they see these photos online. 

And last on the list was to capture patrons in the bar drinking, hanging out, and participating in some of the bar games held during the week: 

Since the bar plans to leverage these photos over the course of several months, I didn’t want to shoot the same 7-8 faces in every shot, as that would become repetitive and boring to see day-after-day on their social feed. 

I balanced that out by creating anonymized images - hands on glasses, backs of arms and heads, and people out of focus in the background.

It’s the same thing I do when capturing client’s during staged consultation sessions and workshop scenarios, and that technique really came in handy during this shoot.

In doing so, this helps give the image portfolio the appearance of unique and fresh content over a stretch of time. 

At the end of the day, it truly was a pleasure to serve a place that carries such significance to me on a personal level, and it has nothing to do with the booze. 

I can do that shit at home for a lot less money.

It has everything to do with the cool people on both sides of the bar - the conversations, moments and experiences are worth the price of entry every single time.

And my hope is that these images help contribute to more folks calling Madam Marie’s home, just like I do.

#yeahabsolutely