Why do reflection photos add value to your portfolio?
A valuable image portfolio is one that’s packed with a variety of images.
And photos that have your reflection in them should be part of it, as well.
The other day, I was chatting with a photographer colleague about lifestyle portraits.
He mentioned when he was scrolling through his feed, he came across a portrait where the subject was leaning against glass and his reflection was prominent in the photo.
Without hesitating, or looking at who posted the photo, he assumed it was one that I took…
…and he would be correct. I’m a self-admitted reflection whore, what can I say :)
He asked me why I focus so much on including reflection photos into my client’s image content portfolios.
Well, there’s 2 reasons…
First, it’s because of aesthetics.
When I first started photographing lifestyle portrait sessions, I was very straight and narrow with my choices behind the camera.
I kept the compositions simple and traditional. Here’s the subject. The subject is either looking into the camera, or engaged in an activity. And, here’s what that looks like.
Over time, as my work matured through added reps, I started to explore and become more curious. I wanted to create additional images that had a layer of complexity to them.
And that’s when I started to play with all these reflections that I, up until that point, framed out of the shot.
Reflections add a deliciously compelling visual layer into the mix. They help to fill the frame in interesting ways, and add to the eye candy factor of the photo.
They also give the client’s design team interesting options when putting together marketing materials, including online content and other promotional pieces.
These images pop, and help to gain the attention of your audience, so, why not, right?
The second reason is because it’s a visual metaphor.
As human beings, there are many layers, wrinkles and nuances to our personalities. We exhibit these various aspects in different ways throughout our lives.
While it is impossible to capture every layer of the subject’s personality in front of the camera, we can allude to it visually.
That’s where the reflection photos come into play.
While it would probably be more accurate to capture a client’s reflection on a multi-pane, glass prism in order to truly create the ideal visual metaphor, I feel that one does a good enough job…
…and, I don’t want to get too trippy during a branded lifestyle portrait session, anyway.
By simply giving this visual hint, that adds more substance to the image portfolio, overall.
At the end of the day, when you commit to creating consistent online content and need image assets to visually punctuate the sentiment of the stories you share, you need a wide variety of images in your portfolio to satisfy those needs.
And, if you simply post the same types of photos over and over again, it becomes repetitive and boring, which ultimately translates to noise and blends into everything else over time.
When booking your next branded lifestyle portrait session, make a point to your photographer to incorporate reflection images into your portfolio as a way to add some aesthetic pop into the mix, as well as add a layer of metaphor that creates a more unique experience for those who are following your content to qualify whether or not you’re the solution to their problem.
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