How to Identify your Brand Shoot Vibe

When you are in the middle of planning a branding shoot, the word “vibe” may come up as a way to nail down the end results of the session. A vibe transmits a feeling and usually connects to a person's emotional state as it is communicated to and felt by others.

When it comes to photography, the vibe helps establish the overall feel of your shoot and that helps you to connect with your audience on that emotional level. This helps you to develop that know, like and trust factor that is so important when it comes to nurturing your client relationships. 

Photos can have different vibes. They can be serene, fun, loud, comfortable, cozy, professional, etc. So when it comes to figuring out what vibe you want to give off in your brand photos, it can be hard to narrow it down. There is so much noise out there it’s difficult to step back and figure out what you like as well as what fits with your brand. 

Keep reading for three easy steps for how to identify your brand shoot vibe, as well as some inspiration from a few of my clients who’s brand vibes are well informed and defined.

Step 1

Who is your audience? 

Finding out who you serve is the first step for many aspects of your business, from the products/services you offer, to your website design, even to what you wear during your branding shoot. For example, if your audience consists of more corporate types, you may want to be a bit more buttoned up in your shoot. That is versus if you’re trying to appeal to those in a creative field you may have more leeway when it comes to your style and the colors you bring into your wardrobe. 

To give you an example, my client The Team is a group of high performing real estate agents in the Boston area. When discussing their shoot plans, they said they wanted to look and feel professional, but not stiff or overly corporate. They also loved to achieve a light and bright look to have a ‘lighter’ feel to their session. In other words, they didn’t want anything super serious, moody or dark. So we planned their location, outfits and even poses to appeal to an audience who appreciates professionalism, but wants to also have that personal, non-corporate feel when working with them.  

For more on what makes a successful branding session, you can click here!

Step 2

Look at existing imagery on sites like Pinterest. 

Let me be clear here that you should not simply be looking for photos or a vibe to copy. You should be looking at images on sites like Pinterest to get an understanding of what you are drawn to when it comes to your brand shoot vibe. 

Recently I experimented with my own shoot vibe when I worked with my client, Hayley Denker of Hayley Denker Marketing. You can read more about our collaboration and how I changed up my usual style to give her brand a moodier vibe so that we ended up with the image above on the left. However, to give you a quick recap of how we went about planning her session, Hayley sent me a Pinterest board full of images that featured hard shadows, flashy images and saturated colors. When I asked her what she loved about the photos, she told me she liked how editorial they looked. She was drawn to the shadows and a little bit of the drama in those photos.

Whereas when I worked with Lavallee Wellness (image above on the right), they loved my go-to light and clean look to give their nutritional clients a clear and traditional view into their approach. This look also is a bit more calming than the editorial vibe of Hayley’s session, which is a feeling that Lavallee Wellness would appreciate for their clients. 

When you find a bunch of photos that you feel drawn to, note some of the similarities in them that you love. Is it the lighting? Is it the pose in the image? The composition? Is it how the photo is edited? Showing these images to your photographer will help them understand what you’re loving/not loving when it comes to visual inspiration for your shoot vibe. Bonus points are also allotted when you can tell them what you don’t like about certain images and why you feel that way!

Step 3

Does this all match up with your visual brand strategy?

Now that you know who your audience is and what you are and aren’t drawn too visually, take all of this information and see how it compares to your own visual brand. If you’ve implemented a visual brand strategy (such as fonts, colors, logos, iconography, patterns, etc.), you should be able to decide if the vibe you’re looking for and the images you like will work together. 

For example, if your brand colors are very muted, does it make sense to use a lot of loud and bold colors, hard shadows and a flashy look in your brand shoot? Probably not. On the other hand if you are like my client, Weaver Orthodontics, whose office is full of bright purple, it made total sense to include that bold color where we could! While we didn’t go with the flashy look we were still able to give their shoot a fun, and bold vibe. 

Now to drive this point home a little more, my clients have a great handle on their brand (e.g. know their audience, messaging, personality) so they tend to come in strong with what they want for their shoot vibe.

Striped Dog Creative

For Isabel Kateman, a website designer with a focus on being strategic with the design, she loves to celebrate her own client’s success when they’ve launched their newly designed site. Her processes are developed to get her clients to a point where their website will improve conversions and increase sales - something totally worth celebrating.  

That’s why when we planned her shoot we discussed bright, bold colors and lots of confetti so that she could leverage this content on both her website and social media. This fun vibe pairs perfectly with her visual brand, again something that was already very well known prior to scheduling her session with me.

Big Picture Copywriting

My client, Courtney Fanning of Big Picture Copywriting recently rebranded and to mark the shift, we scheduled her latest shoot in an old library in Providence, RI. Something to note about Courtney is that not only does she offer copywriting services, she also is a brand strategist. So when she started her rebrand, it was no surprise she took herself through the same discovery process she takes with her own clients. 

During our shoot planning session, I noticed on her Pinterest Board a bit of a shift from our last shoot. In her own strategy discovery she said she was able to put words to her new vibe which was “dark academia’. So this library was not only the perfect location to align with this vibe, I also made sure to shoot in a way that was not overly light and airy but still gave her photos a clean look. The final images not only set her business apart from many others in her field, but it is also very inline with her brand.

Fashionably Kate & Co.

I typically work with service-based businesses but I do a lot of shooting for my business bestie, Kate Andrews, a fashion, travel and lifestyle mom blogger at Fashionably Kate & Co. Her mission is reflective of what many moms seem to be looking for these days: easy ways to dress fashionably and experience the joy of travel while sticking to a budget. 

The vibes she brings to her sessions are always light, sunny and fun with pops of pink (including her pink hair). So when we plan her sessions we always make sure it’s going to give her that light and bright look, which goes along so well with her whimsical, fun vibes like with this quirky bed shot and this dreamy afternoon image outdoors with her daughter. The vibe behind photos like these is that life as a mom can be crazy and a little messy, but it is still possible to enjoy the little luxuries. 

Now that you know how to identify your brand shoot vibe, let me help you to plan your branding session. Get in touch so we can start talking about the vibe you want your business to exude!