Half of this guide is derived from my actual experience working on campaigns for my clients, and the other half is from recent studies from business schools, Shopify analytics, and agency white papers. I link to the source material throughout this guide.

As a photographer, my competition is not other photographers.

My competition is marketing noise—Filler photography and video that looks like 99% of everyone else's content. Why? Because it doesn't work.

Uninspired content is desperate for attention. It does more harm than good in terms of growth and differentiation because it looks like everyone else's.

A behind-the-scenes photoshoot for your personal brand or company is a fantastic way to strengthen a relationship with your audience.

I write a lot about the 'Why' behind brand photography and the science behind it.

Here, however, I want to discuss the 'How.'

I want to take a moment to help you find the right approach for your next brand photoshoot.

Stories are behind our favorite songs and our strongest friendships. They are in our wedding vows, spiritual beliefs, around every campfire, and in every voting booth. Stories are the connective tissue that holds communities together while pushing them forward (we hope). They connect us to something larger than ourselves while also being deeply personal. Stories scale like nothing else in human history.

Examples Of Successful Brand Photography

Below are examples of excellent brand photography. Take a look and try to notice subtle shifts in an emotional response from one set of images to the next.

4 min read.

#4 Much ado about ghosting.

This is a big one.

Just like dating, it happens. And just like dating, never take it personally. I know it's tough, especially when a dream project evaporates. Please remember it happens to the best of us and will continue to happen.

3 mind read.

Almost everything in business is marketing.

I thought marketing was just the assets and strategies (blog posts, print ads, SEO keywording, etc.).

As it turns out, marketing is a vast umbrella that includes how you conduct yourself as a human being and the community you build around you.

5 min read.

A scientific study of photography and a subject’s gaze in advertising from Oxford University.

2 min read.

“By far the greatest influence is exercised by the glance. For it is by this that we express supplication, threats, flattery, sorrow, joy, pride or submission. It is on this that our audience hang, on this that they rivet their attention and their gaze, even before we begin to speak. It is this that inspires the hearer with affection or dislike, this that conveys a world of meaning and is often more eloquent than all our words.”

~ Marcus Fabius Quintilianus 35-100 A.D.

Roman educator and father of modern philosophy on persuasion & rhetoric.