Your brand matters—because it’s how you show up for your clients, the spaces you want to be in, the people you want to be with. Quality photos are an asset for your business, especially if it’s an online business, because they are creating a perception of your brand. By keeping your headshots and photos updated, you’re making an active decision to take control of your narrative.
Today’s episode features my personal experience of preparing for and initiating a photoshoot for my brand. Rita Domingues, our amazing head of marketing, joins me to talk about the process so you can have a successful experience (and even avoid a mistake I made!).
Rita and I get into the useful, practical steps of what’s involved: the timeline, where to use the photos (hint: your media kit), budget, and team collaboration. We even discuss what to look for in choosing a photographer. There are many conversations to have and details to consider, and we walk you through each step as you consider how to up-level your brand through quality photos.
If you’re looking to improve your brand’s perception, this episode is a must!
- Brand Photo Shoot Strategy: Updated photos reflect personal growth, brand maturity, and location-based lifestyle, replacing 7-year-old images for marketing use.
- Photographer Selection: Chose a local professional with aligned vision via discovery calls, ensuring flexibility and creative collaboration during the shoot.
- Photo Shoot Execution: Nearly 230 images over 3.5 hours captured varied styles, using multiple locations and professional styling to support brand storytelling.
- Budget & Resources: Total cost about $1,500 covering photography, hair, makeup, and outfits; flexible budgeting advised based on business stage.
- Marketing Integration: Large image library enables multi-platform use, enhancing visual storytelling and readiness for media opportunities.
- Team Collaboration: Key roles included planner/assistant managing logistics remotely, photographer bringing creative expertise, and day-of support boosting morale.
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- Facebook @stacyenniscreative
- YouTube @stacyennisauthor
To submit a question, email hello@stacyennis.com or join my email list http://stacyennis.com/join and fill out the form on the page.
The author’s guide to a brand photoshoot | Episode 262 Transcript
These transcripts were generated by robots, not writers.
Stacy: Welcome, welcome. This week I am super excited because I have a very special guest with me, Rita Domingues, who is our producer of the podcast and she is in town right now. She lives in Portugal, north of where I am. And so we get together every so often to work on strategy and other elements of the business. And were talking about something recently and we thought, why don’t we share all this information, all this planning, all this work that we did for several months with you. So that’s what we’re going to talk about today. We’re going to talk about brand photo shoots and specifically for authors or really any business owner or somebody who’s looking to grow a personal brand.
Stacy: But before we do, Rita, you’re usually behind the scenes, so would you take a moment to introduce yourselves to our YouTube podcast folks that are joining us.
Rita:Hello everyone. It’s nice to be here with you too. I know I’ve showed up my face, well, not my face, my voice a few times here and there. It’s a little surprise, but it’s really nice to be here record a podcast in person. Like you don’t get to do that a lot with our guests space here.
Stacy: Yes, yes, yes.
Rita:I mean the view that we have from this side, it’s gorgeous but we won’t be sure of that.
Stacy: Just gonna see our faces.
Rita: Also gorgeous. Yeah. So I, I mean I produce the podcast as well as support Stacy in all the marketing aspects of the business and her personal brand support with Pierre for Stacy as well. And we’ve been working together for four and a half years now, which seems kind of nuts that’s how long it’s been. And yeah, like this is how I’ve come down to meet her so we could work in person. I’m about to head on maternity leave in October, so that’s very exciting chapter in my personal life and obviously a little probably perhaps not so exciting for the business as we’re all a bit.
Stacy: Scary, but we’re all happy for you.
Rita:Yeah, I know. But yeah, we’re just planning which was one of the reasons why we got together now it’s to start planning for that time and how are we going to get the support that we need and also finalize the, like, looking at our goals that we’ve accomplished until now. You know, that meteor check in that we usually do anyway, but this time a little bit more focused as well on the time that I’ll be away. But it’s only a short period of time, so don’t worry, the podcast will carry on. Everything will carry on. Just not without me behind the scenes. But yeah, more About Me I. Yeah, I live in central Portugal, close to the coast. It’s nice and very chill. I’ve got two dogs, baby on the way. I am passionate about design, graphic design specifically, and marketing as well.
Rita:And it’s really fun that I get to integrate both things with the. With the business and learned so much from the publishing and author space the last few years through Stacy. And I’m just very glad that I get to do something that I love for my work and enjoy it and combined like meet creative people and people that are driven and. Yeah, so that’s a little bit about me.
Stacy: Yeah, it’s interesting. I didn’t share this with you earlier, but I like when were starting our day, I walked into the space that we’re working and I just kind of took in for a moment that like, we get to just like, what a beautiful way to get to work just to build and create. And I think one thing I would just add is that you also have started getting involved in some of the author education. So you’re going to be running a session with Andrew on our team to like shout out. Andrew is also amazing and we should have on the podcast.
Rita:Actually you guys are getting together later in the year, so.
Stacy: Oh yeah, good point. We might be doing this exact spot, but that Andrew and Rita are going to be doing a session in our author community on metrics. And that’s a huge area of education and learning for authors. So, you know, not just behind the scenes but also in supporting authors. Sometimes you meet with clients who need support on things. She meets with clients, teams sometimes and has been, you know, outside of her normal roles, very integrated into all the things. So that kind of brings us actually into a specific thing that you worked on recently, which was brand photo shoot. And I, you could probably hear the tone in my voice that this was like, not necessarily something that I was jumping up and down to do. And yet I actually had a lot of fun. So we’ll get to that.
Stacy: But maybe I can share, start off a Little bit with why we decided to put the time, money, energy, planning, stress into this author photo shoot. We can talk a little bit about why it mattered, why we made the decision to do it. We’re also going to cover. Do we have some notes? So we’re going to be referencing these just to give them a little overview. Rita, can you scroll down? Because I want to make sure I can give like a. An overview of where we’re going to go. Okay. So we’re going to talk about why you need your brand photos, and I’ll share a little bit for me. We’re going to talk about why it’s an asset and where you can use them.
Stacy: So help you think more than just the author page in your book or the about page on your website, but how you’ll use those as an asset. We’re going to talk about how we started planning and some of the first steps we took and then some of the planning steps we took. And we’re going to get really nitty gritty from outfit planning, location planning, finding vendors, makeup, hair, facial, like, all the things that I did to prepare for it. And then we’re also going to talk about budget and how to think about budget. Depending on where your business stage lives, what you have to spend on your author shoot or your branding business shooting. We’re going to talk about the day of. So I’m going to share a little bit about my experience actually doing the shoot. And then we’ve gotten our photos back.
Stacy: So we’re going to talk to you about what we’re doing next with them. And the hope is that this is going to save you a lot of time and stress and all the things, but also maybe motivate you to not do what I did, which is put it off for probably six, five or six years longer than I should have. So we had this on our list almost every year to get new photos. And it just kept getting kicked down the road. And probably, like me, if you’re listening to this or watching this, you have probably had it on your list, too. And it’s probably gotten kicked down the road because a ton of other things come into priority. You know, on my side, we just had a lot of things going on. I was traveling, we had campaigns, were running.
Stacy: I’m doing client work. I take vacation. I’m very mindful about taking time off. And so it just. It was one of those things that would be like, oh, in six months. Oh, in another six months. And it just kept getting moved down the Road. And that was my fault. Rita very much was bringing it up. It was a priority from a marketing standpoint, but for me, it wasn’t prioritized the way that it should be.
Rita:And also, like to add, there’s also other things, like weather, for example.
Stacy: Yeah, Like.
Rita:Like timing that, like, sometimes the time would be right, but then, yeah, it’s winter. Like, if we want to do some outdoor photos, it’s not going to work so well.
Stacy: So also, like, this is gonna sound a little vain, but, like, I don’t wanna be all pasty in all my photos. You know, in the. We talked about this. We timed. Originally, we wanted to do April, May. That didn’t work out. We ended up doing. No, it was May. We wanted to do April. We ended up doing in May. But part of it was I said, I’m gonna have, like, a little glow. I’ll be outside and I’ll feel good about myself. And I. You know, it gets kind of overcast in the winter. I’m not outside as much. And so I wanted to feel and look my best and feel really confident going into the shoot. But, yeah, you’re right. The heat was a factor. Rain was a factor.
Stacy: And then it kind of got to a point where I remember once we picked a date, which. We’ll talk about that later, and I knew they were coming. It’s kind of like when you start redesigning your website and now you’re like, oh, this thing’s so bad. I know what the new one is coming, and it’s going to be great. I was getting pretty embarrassed about sending my photos. You know, they were just 7 years old by the time we got our new pictures. And, you know, I’m 40 now. I have my. My face has changed. My. It’s not even just my face. It’s also the way I carry myself has changed. I’m more confident, I’m more mature, I’m wiser.
Rita:The brand itself has evolved, and I don’t think the pictures that we’ve had were as reflective of the brand itself as they are now, which we’ll be so excited to share.
Stacy: Yeah. Yeah. And we will also, if you’re on YouTube, you’ll get to see us sneak peek. And I will say I loved my first shoot that I did. My last shoot that I did. And we have captured some photos along the way. We worked with some professional videographers. We captured some photos then, but it wasn’t like a proper shoot. And I will say the other thing. The other reason we put it off is That I loved my photos so much for my last shoot that I didn’t want to do new photos and love them less. Like, I didn’t see a point in that. And we just were coming across talent that mo aligned for us in just really trusting them.
Stacy: Not just from an artistic talent perspective, but also from a human perspective, that they really understood the brand, that they were good business people, responsive, reliable.
Rita:No.
Stacy: And I feel like a lot of that changed when we met Elena. You want to talk a little bit about her? And just kind of what we saw in her that made us decide to work with her, because I think that’ll also be helpful for. For anybody that’s trying to select a photographer. And you’re an artist as well, so you’re able to bring in that. And you’re a photographer, so you’re able to bring in that. I mean, I’ve seen her pictures. You’re very talented.
Rita:It’s a hobby. But, yeah, I think. I mean, before we. Before we dive into that, I think what you said earlier of, like, we picked a date, that was like, were like, okay, we’ve flagged that this is an urgent need. We need to do this. Let’s pick a date. So after we’ve picked a date, then we just kind of work towards it and it’s like, okay, this is happening. So there’s no way that we’re just not going to do it or, like, we need to plan, prepare to this. Yeah. And yeah, then obviously picking the date. And actually before we pick the day, we picked the time of year that we wanted to do it. And that’s when we started the research. Okay, like, we need to. We know we need to speak with someone by. Okay, we’re going to do it in May.
Rita:We know we need to speak with someone by, like, January to make sure that they would have the availability that if it wouldn’t work out, we would have time to, like, find someone else and shift the planning. But yeah, so we started looking at, obviously some. Some people that are local to us that were comfortable doing branding photo shoots, like personal branding photo shoots. Because I think, you know, you have different types of photographers for different types of things, like your wedding event photographers. And then you have your more corporate photography. And then you have your, like housing real estate photography. And I think the personal branding, it’s not just capturing a portrait of someone. You really have to understand the brand as well. You have to do, like, get to know the person a little bit. So for that, we actually met with.
Rita: While Stacy met with Elena, it wasn’t just like over message or over a phone call that she did a video call to kind of like get to know each other a little bit before they started working together. Because that’s important. Like, the person needs to understand your vibe.
Stacy: When I had seen her work also because she’s done quite. She’s done some photography for other people locally for TEDx as well. And so I knew that she was trusted by like a reputable group. I mean, she’s actually one of the organizers and a license holder for TEDx. So she’s, you know, she had proven out her professionalism. Because part of it is, you know, you’re making such a big investment. It’s not even the money part wasn’t the biggest part for us. It was the time and energy that I and Rita were putting toward it. So to put all of that and then have somebody that’s not trustworthy or kind of doesn’t deliver what they say they’re going to, like, that’s a huge risk and a lot of missed time.
Stacy: And I don’t think I would have had the energy to redo it after all that we did to be ready for that morning.
Rita:And even with all the planning, you know, that was stuff that didn’t like every plan, they didn’t go like we originally envisioned them. And we had to shift and like, move things over as were going through this creative process. Because truthfully, it was a creative process. And, yeah, so I think, yeah, it’s important that you are working with someone that understands that and can work with you, which Elaine is great for that. Like, from the beginning, communicating with her was super easy. And, you know, she was responsive and she understood why were asking the questions were asking. Because by asking questions like, I don’t know, not just like your rate and your availability, but like your experience. Like, what do you like about certain things?
Rita: And I think that just, you know, you get to know the person that you’re working with both in both ways. Her, us, and we get to know her work. Not just her work, but like, way of working to. Because again, it’s a creative. It is a creative. What am I trying to sing here?
Stacy: Collaboration.
Rita: Yeah, collaboration and effort. Like, it’s. It’s a creative. It’s creative work. So you do want to have someone that aligns with your vision. So. So, yeah, so we started researching. I reached out to her December, I think, the first time I spoke to her, and we kind of like didn’t follow back because we just, you know, New Year, were having campaigns, running other things and it got to like, I think late January, beginning of February. And I was like, stacy, we need to get this booked. And that’s when were like re engaged a conversation with her, picked a date and then yes, things started flying from there.
Stacy: We were also looking for a photographer for our retreat as well, which we’ve also hired the same amazing photographer for. But one thing I just want to backtrack a little because I think this is really useful for anybody who’s doing a brand photo shoot, business shoot, author shoot, is that we really approached it from a collaborative standpoint and really kind of brought her into the vision of what we wanted to create. We didn’t just send her an email that’s like, what do you charge? Can you send me a service packet? You know that is the last way that you want to reach out to somebody that’s going to be. Has such a huge hand in your curated brand image.
Stacy: And the other thing is with any vendor that you use, whether it’s a book coach or it’s a photographer, whatever you’re working with is you have every right to interview and ask questions and dig in. And if you do it in a collaborative spirit and then you get to also test how that person is in responding to questions, that’s a great way to see is this a collaborative person? Are they going to be willing to answer my questions? And you want to make sure that is really going to be a positive relationship. So doing that due diligence and we had already looked at a ton of different photographers websites. We, I think you had reached out to one other photographer that we found and I think it was just, it was a little bit. The vibe too.
Rita:Not only that, like a lot of times you don’t even get responses which, which for me is like, okay, that’s fair enough. But you know, so just again, like.
Stacy: You’ll find your photographer.
Rita:Yeah.
Stacy: And it’s also like you have to find the person that works also with your budget. So it’s always looking for the best person that you can afford within the constraints that you have. So just kind of knowing what that budget is going in, that’ll also help you make decisions which. We’ll talk about budget later. We didn’t talk yet though about like the bigger why I talked about why I put it off and why, you know, I, I didn’t really talk about why. I wish I hadn’t yet and why it matters. But for us, you know, these because my brand is so personal driven. It’s me as a human being, as the expert in the business that supports authors. So I am the face of the business.
Stacy: Because while the legal business is not actually called my name, I bet you have no idea what it is. Most people have no clue. Most people know it as Stacy Ennis as my name. So having updated looks like me also aligned with the vibe of our brand now, the maturity of the brand, the way that we’ve grown in seven years. I mean just the distance that I’ve come as a professional and expert. That that’s all present and also doesn’t just reflect where the business is, but where the business is going. And the fact that I’m in Portugal now. We’ve got this beautiful images of Portugal so that having that be current is so important and taking control of your image narrative is so important, but then also having it for all the things.
Stacy: So we got 50 photos per shooting hour and we did three and a half shooting hours and then we actually ended up buying a couple more. I think in total we ended up with almost 230 photos. So we have just this like treasure trove of beautiful photos that we’re going to use to update website, social media kit. We have different images that we can use for different events or media that comes up. We just have this huge bank now of aligned, updated photos. And I know you were really excited to get those updated to be able to use them in marketing.
Rita:Yeah, because I think that our photos, the ones that we had before, like I mentioned, they were. I mean they are, they were reflective of you and of your work and they’re gorgeous pictures. I still love them now, but I just don’t think they were as reflective of the business itself as it stands. 1. You were in the US still. Yeah, like just the imagery around, it’s just so different, like the landscape. And I think, you know, we wanted that to be reflective because that’s a big part of like the brand by being in location, independent, like that flexibility and that lifestyle piece. So that was really important for us to be able to capture. And the other one was just. They were just over saturated the images. We’ve used them so much that it was just maybe like most likely probably.
Stacy: No one really notices the image, just to be clear, because it’s not oversaturated in like the actual editing of the images because they’re beautiful. And a huge shout out to Brandi Lynn, who I adore and would love to do more photos with in the future. But you just mean in our marketing usage, like, we’d use it for.
Rita:I just literally translate it from Portuguese to English.
Stacy: What is the Portuguese word?
Rita: Saturado.
Stacy: Saturado.
Rita: It’s like. It’s like when you’ve overused something.
Stacy: Okay.
Rita:Because I think it’s like, a bit tiring. It’s like. Yeah, same again. That would be the right one.
Stacy: Yeah.
Rita:Sorry, guys.
Stacy: Well, I learned a new vocabulary word, as did our.
Rita: But saturated. And I’ll say the same as, like, saturated for. For picture editing.
Stacy: Interesting. The other thing, just to kind of the point of this and why you want to do this and think about it sooner than later and plan ahead, is that if you’re in the process of launching your book or relaunching your book, or you have a campaign coming up, or you have a business growth objective, a brand campaign coming up, marketing campaign, the last thing you want to do is rush and hustle and hurry and, like, book photos in two weeks and not feel ready for it. Not have the outfits you want. You want to meet opportunity proactively. And while I still. I mean, were working from beautiful photos, so it’s not like we didn’t have something to use. But I do feel like there was a missed opportunity there.
Stacy: I should have probably done at least minimum one more shoot between last time and this time, but probably two. So we really did miss some opportunity there. Really, you should be doing photos every two to three years at this capacity, like in this kind of bigger effort. And it doesn’t have to be as big as we’re going to talk through, but to have those updated and ready. So when you get that keynote or you get that media thing, I had a couple things that came through that if I had a photo like this to send in, it would have just been so epic. And like, I think about that now, and I wish I had that on hand, and I didn’t. So now we do.
Stacy: Let’s talk logistics, because this is one of the reasons that we’re recording this, is to get all the specifics down for you, to document it for you. And hopefully this will be really useful for you. Okay. We had to edit this episode because Rita and I had to remember exactly when we got this on the calendar, because this is a first step.
Rita: So we needed to argue.
Stacy: We had to argue a little, lovingly argue. Okay. So what were. What we determined is that we got it on the plan. About how many months ahead?
Rita: About six months ahead.
Stacy: Six months.
Rita:We knew that. We knew we wanted it Was it would have to be done this year. And we knew we wanted to do it on the earlier part of the year and between seasons, like on the.
Stacy: Shoulder season kind of thing for all the tourists.
Rita:For all the tourists. For the heat and with already a little bit of a glow. Some.
Stacy: Some skin. As we talked about, as we spoke before.
Rita: So, yeah, it was about six months. We knew that we wanted to do about May. April. May ended up being. Yeah, early May. That we did the shoot. Early May.
Stacy: Yeah, we got it booked probably three or four months ahead.
Rita: Yeah, three. I think about three months.
Stacy: We talked to her probably four months ahead. And I think I put the deposit down three months ahead or something. Yeah, because were.
Rita:There was a couple of dates that were trying to see. And then obviously that also depended because as you will see when. When you’ll see the photos, there was some indoor and outdoor shooting. So not only were. The date mattered for, like, the tourists in town because Stacy lives in a. In a quite touristic area. The. The weather, but also the availability of the space that were going to take the indoor photos. Photos. So that was like a little bit of a coordination, making sure that the people that were supporting through the shoot, on the day of the shoot were available. So then that’s when we. We got the date. Actually. It was June.
Stacy: Was.
Rita: It was early June. Was June. Yeah.
Stacy: So don’t do this. Don’t book something like this one week before you’re going to travel internationally. Because I would not have done that again. But I did realize, actually when were planning our annual strategy, we did put some tentative dates on the calendar, but I think it was in April.
Rita:Yeah.
Stacy: Yeah. So I think that was good because at least it was on our calendar. And then it’s kind of like anything else until you put the deposit down, it’s not really happening. So we got the date, and then our next step was coming up with the kind of visual of. Kind of the. The artistic direction which Rita put together.
Rita:We got to put some screenshots during this video so go on YouTube to watch it so you can see a little bit of like. Of the behind the scenes of, like, how we created. So the mood board that we started envisioning after conversations that we’ve had. So we just started putting, like, mood board of inspiration of both makeup, like, styling of photography on the street. Obviously we looked as well for that inspiration. When we picked to work with Elena, we looked at a portfolio, so we knew that, like, she was more than capable of doing that style. And even on that mood board I included some shots that she has taken before because she shoot, she had shoots before in the place that we shot indoors.
Rita:So we could like recreate a little bit of like this is the sort of vibe that we want to capture. So we started like capturing all of those for a mood board and then from there, from then we then started to plan the actual outfits. How many outfits? Like how are they going to like, you know, like how many are we going to use them? Are we going to use them indoors, outdoors? Like, are we going to do a bit of a mix? Because like we’ve said like, and obviously this will depend where you are in your business at the moment.
Rita:And like, you don’t have to do all of this, but for what we wanted to do and where Stacy is at this time of our business, if we’re going to make all this investment, not only like financially but time wise, which is the main focus. And yeah, we wanted to have photos for a long time. Well, not seven years, but for a long time. And they were also flexible and like that show different sides of the business because the brand itself has different components in that. So it was very important for us to have that captured. Which means different outfits, different locations and long, a longer day of shooting. And I lost my train of thought.
Stacy: So that’s okay.
Rita: Might want to carry on.
Stacy: Well, what I was just going to add is of course not everybody will have a talented person like Rita to support you on this. But you know, I, I think that taking some time to put together a Pinterest board or a mood board for yourself, we will put this on the screen again. If we’ve already showed it once, we’ll put it up again just to kind of walk through and show you what she did. But you can use also AI to support you on some of these. You can use Canva. You can use all kinds of different things to put these mood boards together. One of the things that we ran into that we had to revise a little bit is the original outfit plan was more casual than I wanted.
Stacy: And I wanted some casual, but I really also wanted really kind of like an elevated whimsical look. And I wanted like an elevated, like something I could wear into a boardroom. And I wanted casual. And I, and I.
Rita: A bit urban too.
Stacy: A little urban. And I remember the first, I loved the first outfit plan, but I think, I don’t know if I called you I wrote you, but I said, you know, part of our brand is an elevated, elite brand, so we need to elevate some of components of these outfits. So we did things like change the shoe on an outfit or add a jacket or, you know, we changed a couple things in our original planning just to kind of match not just where the brand is, but where we want to go. Because this. The images, we’re not just showing you every day. When you’re doing your photo shoot, you are curating the image of your business, your brand, your author brand, and you’re telling a story about how you want to be perceived.
Stacy: You’re shaping that narrative so you have a real opportunity to do that, but you have to think about that. And it’s not, you know, I love for people to just look at our hearts and our brains and see all of our value, but that’s just not how humans work. We take information, we make conclusions, illusions, and the first information your brain, anybody’s brain has, is what they see. And so that visual is your active storytelling. And that’s what we worked so hard on, was to make sure that were really active storytelling in our imagery,.
Rita:Especially online business. Right? Like, we don’t get to go to an office space and welcome people to the door is like, all of our doors are to the house. Let’s say it’s all virtual. So we really have to recreate the feeling that we want to pass to our audience and our clients. We really have to be very thoughtful how we are recreating that in a virtual space, because like I said, we can’t physically welcome people and capture those moments and create that experience to everyone through physical. So especially if you are an online business, it’s so important that your image really capture what you’re trying to perceive to the world.
Stacy: Such a great point. And also, even if you’re not an online business, I think this is true all the way around. The first time somebody meets you will be through an image, most likely maybe a video, but something that your physical body is not present for. So it’s important to. To really take ownership over that. I’m thinking, you know, I’m looking at our notes reader that we put together, and maybe we can walk through the day of and kind of talk through all of these, the logistical components of it. So hair, makeup, all those things so we can kind of talk through. You know, we organized all of these items ahead of time. We, being Rita, mostly did the work of organizing. But why don’t we start at the day of the kind of the.
Stacy: Actually I’ll talk to you about the week leading up. I had a facial, just a normal facial like three days before. I had my eyebrows done, just tinted and shaped. So those and my nails done. So I did my nails and my toes because I had some open toed shoes. So those. For any men listening, I. You’re so lucky. You’re so lucky. I was thinking about this during that week. I was like, man, you have to do so much stuff. But for us women, these are probably things. I don’t normally get my nails done, I don’t normally do facials. I do like to have my eyebrows done, but other than that I’m. I’m pretty low maintenance.
Rita: I think it’s important to know, to like to say why you also did that. Not only to obviously it’s to look good in the picture, but also for you to feel your best self. Because that energy, you want to carry that energy through the images. And that’s like if you’re not feeling great when someone’s taking a picture of you just kind of feel awkward. And even if the picture, if no one can tell, like you’re going to look at that photo and know that you are feeling that way. And again, these pictures will reflect your brand, how you want to position yourself. And you are like Stacy mentioned right at the top of the episode, you’re in charge of like creating the narrative that you are that you want for.
Stacy: Your inner narrative too. Exactly, exactly. Yeah. The point.
Rita: So for Stacy, it was really important that she was doing everything she could to feel great. So obviously it was the leading. The week leading up to. But then stuff that you did on the day to feel good as well. Yeah, like exercising, have a good sleep. Yeah.
Stacy: I ran the morning of so yeah,.
Rita:You can, you can carry on the.
Stacy: Ending of the day. I was even just thinking, even leading up to the photos, like I was thoughtful about my exercise and my food and like, again, should it matter? No. Would it be nice if I could just show everybody my credentials and the fact that I care? That’d be great. But like I knew if I didn’t take care of myself and feel really good going in, I, to Rita’s point, I was not going to feel my best and I wanted to feel good.
Rita: And have fun on the day as well.
Stacy: Yes, I have fun. That was actually like the day that I woke up, I realized I had been like kind of not excited about it. So the morning of I was like, I’m gonna like treat this like A wedding day, you know, your wedding day, you get pampered and you have fun and it’s like joyful. And so I kind of, I, I just kind of like even wore like almost like what you would wear if you were a bride. Like, it was like this loose fitting kind of vibe and I had like little I’m things on and then a hair push back. And I just kind of was like, you know, ready to get my hair and makeup done. And I was just like, I’m gonna have fun. I brought Taylor Swift to listen to during the photo shoot.
Stacy: I brought my little Bose portable speaker and like just had fun. And I think that made it way more joyful than if I was like nervous and because the photos are gonna happen whether you’re miserable and anxious or happy and having fun, like, I know fun, you know, and it makes you more confident too. Morning of I had my hair done and my makeup done. So shout out to Kamal and Diana for doing a great job on that and made me feel really great going into my photos. And I actually hired a young woman named Suna who was really like an unexpectedly awesome aspect of this day because she models, so she’s younger, she’s still in high school.
Stacy: And she came in, like basically carted things around for me all day, but then she would come in and like give me modeling tips and things. So that was so fun.
Rita: And she just brought a really light.
Stacy: Energy to the energy. It was so fun. She was just lovely and like made it super fun. And that was kind of a last minute thing. It was like a couple days before I was like, oh my gosh, I’ve got so much stuff. I had props, you know, books, glasses, the little props that I brought. And I was like, I can’t carry, I’m going to be so sweaty and gross. And so she came and helped with that. And then we had several locations, so I rented a venue for a couple of hours. We did indoor photos and we also did some outdoor photos. And maybe this would be a great point to show some of them on the screen and do like a little peek on YouTube. If you’re on the YouTube channel, we’ll do a little peek at some of the beautiful photos.
Stacy: We had indoor. We did multiple locations indoor. We did some urban vibes. We did waterfront. We did wind. Oh, the car, the yellow car.
Rita: That’s the other point that I was going to say. It was like that was a lot of planning on the behind of the scenes between me and the photographer, like picking the location and the outfits to match the vibe that were of the spaces that they were going to shoot. I was literally like, as, obviously, I don’t live in Stacey’s town. So I was on Google Maps on Street View, because I know the town very well. I used to live here. So I was like, I know the place, but I need to show this to the photographer so she knows what I’m talking about. Like, capturing, like, screenshots from Street View of Google Maps and like, planning with her and push it back too.
Stacy: Which I think, like, you and. You and Alena had a really good exchange.
Rita: Yeah.
Stacy: Like, she had some ideas that were really good ideas, but you knew the brand. And I think, like, this is a great lesson for anybody that’s planning this. Like, if you know something is right for your brand, a great collaborator will be like, okay, great. Like, let’s talk about that. And then Elena would kind of push back where she needed to. And that arrived at a really great. Please.
Rita: Yeah, because for. For. For her. She has an expertise that I obviously don’t have. It has to do with lighting and the time of the day and how that actually is going to come across on the image. And then obviously she was doing the editing part too. So I was. I would say to her, I was like, I would love this, but you tell me if this makes sense for the times of the day that we want to shoot. So it was really great. Like, and again, going back to what were saying, picking the person that you. It’s going to help you with this. It’s so important because you want to have this as a creative collaboration effort. And yeah, it was. It was fantastic to work with her.
Rita: And my point that was meant to say about, like, all this planning, they still went off script. Unfortunately, I wasn’t here for the day of the shoot, but they went off script. And that was great because we got those great images that were even part of the plan. And when I saw the sneak peeks, I was like, oh, my God, this looks so good. I’m so glad that, like, the yellow.
Stacy: The yellow car. Well, I’ll just show that one on. On YouTube and then. Cause Elena had a specific street in mind and she had a specific, like, not building. It’s like a tree kind of area. And there was this one image that we’ll have to show where. I love this picture. I’m kind of like holding my hair and the sun is coming up over my shoulder. Do you know the one that I’m talking about? If you can’t find it all. I’ll help you find it via YouTube. But it’s just, like, such a beautiful shot, and she knew exactly what she wanted. And so it’s also having trust in the photographer that you hire to make sure you’re listening. And, like, she really was like, no, we have to go get this. And we’re all trudging there, and we get there and it’s beautiful.
Stacy: So on this collaborative element, even at the start of the photos, I. I don’t remember exactly how the conversation unfolded, but we had a little powwow at the start that was like, let’s have fun. Let’s enjoy it. Today I turned on the Taylor Swift, and then we just kept that attitude all day. And we took a big break in the middle as well so that we could eat and refresh and rest a little bit. And so that also helped keep our energy high because it was all day. By the end of the day, were all completely exhausted. I had sores on my feet from walking around, but were all. So it was just such a feeling of accomplishment and fun and joy and like, we created something really special and had a special experience.
Stacy: And whether you have just you and a photographer, you and a support person and somebody like Rita helping, or if you’re really diying a lot of it, if you can go into it with that mindset, it’s like you’re going to grow from that experience more than it just being like, okay, let’s take another picture. You know, just have fun. It also doesn’t have to be multiple locations. It doesn’t need to be multiple outfits. If you have. We’re going to talk about budget shortly, but if you have a smaller budget, one location with maybe two outfits can still yield amazing results. You can have a great time with it, and you can get something that’s an asset for your business. So why don’t we talk a little bit about budget?
Stacy: We totaled up what we spent on this shoot altogether, and our budget came out to about $1,500. And this is. I know for many of you in the U.S. especially if you’re in the east coast or like west coast, like California, that’s not going to be a very reasonable number for you to shoot for. That included outfits, renting the location, hair, makeup, facial nails, photography, which was obviously the biggest item. But a lot of, like, the personal care services are very affordable here. So that made it more possible. And we. I think we actually would have spent more money on clothes. But the more expensive Items didn’t end up working anyway, so we returned them. And my favorite outfit I actually ended up buying was it the day before, the night before, in a panic.
Stacy: But it was actually like my favorite dress I’ve ever had pictures done in other than my wedding dress. And so there was, you know, there was a lot of planning and thoughtfulness in the budget, but then some of it didn’t work out, so we had to be, you know, scrappy I guess. So what I would say to you is that, you know, you do need to have a budget for good high quality photos. But it doesn’t need to be fifteen hundred dollars. It might be more than that. It might be you might have a bigger budget or you might have a much smaller budget. The my first free photos that I ever had done were in my backyard and my husband took it.
Stacy: You know, it doesn’t have to look like what I’m talking about, but I also think it’s really good no matter what stage you’re at, to hear what other people are doing. So you can go, okay, I could take that. I could take that. I might not be able to do, you know, a facial and maybe get as many outfits or as long of a shoot, but I might be able to do a one hour shoot and two outfits and I could have my makeup done, but I’m going to do my own hair. And you know, you can factor those.
Rita: Into it and you can totally DIY this. And I think that’s like the main reason why we’re sharing this video is like, it’s more about the importance of why you should do this, how you can use the pictures and like the planning that we’ve used that hopefully will save you time to plan. It’s just like, okay, this is like checks of like, I need to think about this. Think about this. We could totally DIY this whole thing. And in fact, were going to work with a personal stylist as well. And then we decided actually, why don’t we just like discuss that between Stacy and I. We did that because we felt like it just didn’t felt reason to make that investment right now. Because again, even though we planned this big time, it felt like too rushed.
Stacy: Yeah.
Rita: To. And it was a big investment to get someone to do that work in a rushed way so you can do a DIY this. Like Stacy said, like your husband did your first photos in your backyard. So with a little bit of planning, a little bit of like just like thinking about how you’re going to take the pictures rather than just, oh, damn, I need to take like a. A headshot now because I need to send this and they need it by tomorrow. I need just like a rushed headshot. In an outfit that you perhaps don’t love so much. You can totally just like, plan a little bit ahead and totally do this for a very affordable way. This really depends where you are in your business.
Rita: But the main thing of this episode and why we’re sharing this is why it’s important and why you should do it with time and the planning behind it.
Stacy: Yeah, well, I love the way that you put that. And then also, you know, your point about the, like, rushed headshot. If you plan ahead and you. Let’s say you can budget for an hour, you can do one location, you have two or three outfits. You can get so many shots. You can get like, we’ll show some on the screen of, you know, typing of. I’m writing on sticky notes. We have so many different shots, so many different angles, so many different. Just vibes. Yeah, vibes is a good. We love the vibes. And so it gives you a lot of versatility for different formats.
Stacy: So just as an example, I. I alluded to this a little bit earlier, but, you know, if I am speaking at a Nomad conference, which I have never done, but I could see that happening in the future, I might send them one of the pictures of me in front of one of the Portuguese tile buildings. And if I’m speaking at a. An accounting conference, which I have done many times, I might send them one with a blazer in a little bit more of a kind of professional feel that would maybe resonate more with that audience. So you have some versatility. And even just taking a jacket off can completely change an outfit. Changing a necklace, you know, there’s putting. Putting your hair up in a.
Rita: Standing versus sitting down. Yeah, I know. Like, it. It like. And again, you will work with the person that you will work with or. Or even just get it. Spread inspiration. Just go on interest and get inspiration of other people’s shots if you can’t hire a photographer. So.
Stacy: Yeah, yeah. So with all that said, we are going to be using these photos Everywhere, including on YouTube, including the website, the podcast, the social media. So if you’re following us on all the places, just keep an eye out. It’s going to be like a photo scavenger hunt of where we’re using all the things or. So excited. Probably Rita is the most excited. And I really hope that this was helpful for you, no matter the stage you’re at, if you’ve never had photos done, it’s going to be great. You’re going to be awesome. You’ll feel handsome or beautiful. You will, you know, just show up as you have fun. Invest what you can, but really pay attention to, you know, how do you want to show up? How do you want to project yourself and just do your best with the resources you have.
Stacy: You know, if you don’t have a Rita, I’m so lucky to have her to work with. Just be your own Rita, you know, and put in that time and thought because it will really pay off. Do you feel like it was worth all the. Oh, yeah.
Rita: Energy, like, even on the day, just like seeing like behind the scenes of like how the outfits is. One thing is like you planning the outfits on your computer and like seeing the images. The other is like actually seeing them on the day with the makeup, with the hair, like all the things.
Stacy: Yeah.
Rita: And it was just so nice. I was just so excited. And when we got the photos back, I was like, heck yes.
Stacy: This is very Heck yes.
Rita: So, yeah, just stay tuned. We’re going to be updating everything very soon. So. Yeah.
Stacy: Thank you for joining me, Rita. Thank you for having me. I get to meet you in person. Normally I’m thanking you behind the scenes for all the work that you do to get this out and into the world. And it’s not going to be the same when you’re on maternity leave, but we’ll do our best to do you proud and keep everything coming smoothly until your return. And thank you for being with us. If you’re on YouTube, maybe for the first time because you wanted to see a sneak peek of our pictures, hit that.
Rita: Follow.
Stacy: I don’t even know what it’s called. Subscribe button. We’re a little like, we’ve had YouTube for a while, but we’re not as YouTubey yet. So you’d be really helping us grow our channel by subscribing, maybe leaving a comment of your favorite photo and we will be back with you before you know it.
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