Hello everybody out there! My name is Paula Brennan. I’m a portrait photographer who specializes in personal branding photo shoots and I’m coming to you from my lounge room. Well, actually my dining table here today in the Sunshine Coast.

Now, why am I coming to you from my dining table? Well today, what I wanted to talk to you about was something very important to me when it comes to planning out your photo shoots and that is the importance of preparation. Now I could think of no better example than to come to you from the place where I myself do my preparation everyday and every night right here on my little old dining table with my laptop in hand and this is where I personally get myself sorted and prepared for the day ahead. Now for you, what does that mean? Well, I thought the best way for me to explain this was to talk to you about a recent shoot that I did with a gorgeous entrepreneur called Natalee Andersen.

Now, Natalee Andersen runs a fabulous online women’s health business which is called Fat Burning Women. She knows exactly who she’s talking to and so she came to me to get some updated photographs to help her to share more of her goodness to women who need her help. So, what did Natalee do right? And what did she teach me that I needed to learn from her shoot? Well, the main thing that came out from me from Natalee’s shoot was the importance and the value of really good preparation in your laid up to your photoshoot experience.

Now, from most women that comes to me that means they wanna get their hair sorted. They need to get their thought- their clothes in order and they need to look at the shoes in the wardrobe and their jewelry but when it comes to personal branding photo shoots, you need to take it a little step extra and that’s exactly what Natalee did. So let me share with you what I think Natalee did really well in order to get a fabulous collection of great photos from me out of her shoot.

So, the first thing that I think that Natalee did really well in her preparation is she was really clear on who she’s talking to. Now if you’ve been in business for a couple of years you definitely have an advantage for this one ’cause you know who your ideal client or your avatar as they call it is. However, I know with Natalee she was very clear on the type of woman that she wants to attract and said that. Therefore it made it really easy for us to create images that slotted in well into the places where we know that those women hang out, and for Natalie that was on Facebook. You can see she’s got quite a few members here and then she also has quite a large following on Instagram as well, and so it was important for us to create images that sat well. We did both of those platforms and of course for attracted- attractive to her ideal target client.

I think when you look through Nat’s images it’s really apparent that she really knew who she was talking to and her images speak to that woman on a certain level that kind of health-conscious wanting-to-make-the-change-in-her-life type of woman and Nat did that really well and queued us too that I think it she really aced it on these.

The second thing that Natalee did, which was just so helpful and really good in her preparation for her shoot is she really understood and had a clear idea of what she wanted to do with the photographs afterwards. So just having a quick look at her site here you can see what she’s done with them afterwards. She’s embedded some of the photos into here and she’s been able to use the photographs for specific campaigns and these images have gone on to become the face or the specific image just to match up with those, marry up with those campaigns and they’ll carry her through for that entire campaign.

Now, when I sat with Natalee after we did the photoshoot, I was able to look through and see where she’s been able to use these photographs. And to be honest with you, I was almost a little bit jealous because I was like, I really wanna have a coach in the photos like these. But it was because Natalee knew exactly where the photos were gonna go that she could give me really clear indication of this and it made it really easy for me to just create those images for her when we were at the shoot. So knowing where those images are gonna be going, whether it be for banners, whether it be for just your Social Media profile, whether it’s for your Instagram feed, whether it’s to go into specific marketing campaigns, this is really really important so that you can make sure that you get everything that you might need for the next 12 to 18 months of campaigns coming ahead in your business. So that’s one thing that I really need you to keep an eye on.

Now, the other thing that I found that was really helpful for my journey with Natalee was that she had a really clear idea of the styles of photographs that she wanted. Now, this might seem a little bit funny because if you’re coming to me, obviously you like my style, but there are specific sorts of looks that you might like in photographs. It could be the composition, it could be the colors that I used. It could be obviously the location, it can be just the way that a woman feels or looks in her photographs. And Natalee really nailed these by creating for me a Pinterest board that I could look at and each of the photographs that she created in the Pinterest board had little notes for me to just let me know what it is that in trade or interested her about the photographs. Now, obviously as a photographer I’m not gonna go along and recreate all of those photographs but what they’re really helpful for is just the inspiration so if we get to a location and I’m not exactly sure of what Natalee wanted I can just jump onto that pinterest board and I get a really really good indication of exactly what it was that Natalee was hoping for us to get when we get to that sort of location.

So, I think that a Pinterest board, is really really helpful. It doesn’t even need to be necessarily on Pinterest. It can just be a bunch of photographs that you put into a file when you’re screen-grabbing them as you go along. But it’s really really helpful for your photographer, when you go and have your photoshoot, to have those just just there to give them a really good sense of what you’re after.

Now, the last thing I wanted to talk to you about what Natalee did really well was that she brought along a fabulous collection of props. So, not only did she have props listed there and she had lots of different ideas on exactly what she wanted. For Natalee, it came down to food and nutrition was a lot of what the props were, but she also had planned out each of her clothing along the way for the different shoots- different parts of the shoot as well. So, she was quite lucky that her sister is very good at styling and she was able to help her to go through her wardrobe and pick up some pieces and also take her shopping. But it was really helpful that she had already got a really good idea of what outfits that she wanted to work in which locations, because as a photographer for myself and for Kaley, we do love to do the styling on the shoots but sometimes that can hinder or get in the way of our productivity on the shoot if we’re constantly having to think of outfits and putting them together.

So if you’ve got a really good idea of that before you come to the shoot, it can save a lot of time which obviously for you guys means you get more photographs taken at your photoshoot. So yeah, so getting a good idea on your props and your clothing and having a really clear indication of what you want them to be different points on the shoot is very helpful for getting the most out of your shoot.

Now, one other little bonus tip that I wanted to give you which is what Natalee did was that she brought along helpers for her shoot. So, for the first part of the shoot, she got her husband to go and gather a lot of the fresh produce that we used in the shoot and he brought it along and he was able to put it together. So Natalee didn’t have to worry about it, I didn’t have to worry about it, Kaley didn’t have to worry about it. It was all taken care of so while I was photographing Natalee, her husband was busy behind the scenes putting together the next props for the next shoot and making it all look delicious and yummy first to put together in the shoot. It was fabulous, it was just so helpful to have him there, I cannot tell you. And then he was able to do the clean up afterwards as well which is even better! And then when we moved on to the next part of her shoot, her mom came along and gave us a hand. So her mom was able to be there, to help with the clothes and to gather the clothes. And to give her the next outfits and to keep it all together, and keep it all really nice and organized.

I cannot tell you how helpful this is on the shoot. To just have a secondary person there that can take care of all of your stuff, because I mean, we’re happy to do it but again, it’s these kinds of things that slow us down and hinder our productivity and obviously what we can create for you guys on your shoot. So, that was a major bonus! And her mom stayed with us right through to the end of the shoot.

So, if you are planning on to having a personal branding shoot with me or with any photographers I really hope that you can take some lessons from Natalee’s shoot with me as I did because I can guarantee you every single person that comes for me with the shoot now, I’m gonna be giving them these pointers and telling them that these are the things that I really think they should be doing in order to get the best value and the most amount of shots out of your personal branding photography experience.