Keep your design team happy by doing this...
Why keep so many photos that have only slight differences from shot to shot?
What you think is repetitive, your design team thinks is gold.
During a recent photo review session with a client, an interesting question arose.
During her 4 hours in front of the camera, we created over 900 photos and needed to identify the gems that would end up in her image portfolio.
At one point, we landed on the section where I photographed her thinking to herself while looking out the window.
I captured about 50 photos of this scenario, and she was under the impression that we needed to find 1 magical image and delete the rest.
I told her that deleting all those shots would be a wasted opportunity.
She responded, “what is the point of having multiple photos of the same activity?”
My answer was simple:
“It gives your design team a ton of options to create.”
You see, as an Expert, you have an endless need for premium visuals.
You use them everywhere - social content, blog thumbnails, website elements, press photos, podcast promotional materials, presentation slides, press kits, one sheets, printed materials…
...I could go on, but you get the point.
Rather than simply offering your designers the same three photos to recycle over and over to help satisfy your visual marketing needs, give them options.
And these options don’t need to be big - subtle changes from shot-to-shot makes a huge difference:
Slight facial expression changes
Adjusting your body language
Changing up the photo composition
Redirecting your eye level
Slight lighting adjustments
These minor differences ultimately change not only the visual landscape, but also the emotional sentiment of the photo, as well.
And this creates myriad opportunities for the people charged with creating your visual assets.
Bearing this in mind, while it would have been overkill to keep all of the 50+ photos of her staring out the window, we ended up selecting 10 images to place into her image portfolio.
Does this mean that it would be a failure if her team didn’t leverage every single one of these photos in some way, shape or form?
No.
It means that they have a plethora of options from which to choose when looking to fulfill all the visual asset needs she has.
It’s okay to have photos you never use…
...but it’s not okay to be forced to use the same shit over and over and over again, despite whether or not the visual is a real fit for the job.
Keep this in mind the next time you’re reviewing photos from your session. Don’t simply settle for one and done.
While you may get sick and tired of staring at similar photos of your face, keep your team in mind when making the final call.
For more information on persuasive and compelling storytelling for Expert business owners, I share a ton of insights in my newsletter. I also talk about photos, too :)
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