When you are the face behind your business, you need photos of more than just your face.

Catherine Smith is a maternity and newborn photographer, so for her branding shoot we wanted to create a collection of images that felt professional and polished, but still warm, relaxed and approachable.

We photographed the session in my Hamilton studio using natural window light and a soft, neutral palette, with plenty of variation across outfits, poses and crops to give Catherine a useful library of images for her website, social media and marketing.

Creating variety without changing the overall feel

Catherine brought several outfits with her, working with browns, creams, whites, denim, beige, khaki and a deeper maroon tone.

Rather than every image being a traditional portrait looking directly at the camera, I photographed a mixture of seated and standing portraits, closer crops, wider images, looking-away moments and images incorporating her camera.

The result is a gallery that still feels cohesive, but gives her plenty of different options depending on where an image needs to be used.

That variety is particularly useful for personal branding. Sometimes you need a strong portrait for an About page. Sometimes you need something wider with negative space for website copy. And sometimes you just need an image where you’re not staring directly at the person reading your Instagram caption. 😂

Hair and makeup that still looked like Catherine

Professional hair and makeup was by Brydie Donaldson Makeup, with the focus on polishing Catherine’s natural look rather than transforming it.

Catherine has beautiful natural curls, so Brydie worked with them, defining and perfecting what was already there rather than straightening them or creating an entirely different hairstyle.

That’s something I really like for branding photography. You should still look like the person your clients are actually going to meet.

A branding gallery that feels approachable

Because Catherine works with maternity and newborn clients, an overly corporate feel wouldn’t have made much sense.

The combination of natural light, softer styling, neutral colours and relaxed posing gave us imagery that feels professional without losing the warmth and approachability of her brand.

And because we created everything from polished portraits through to more relaxed photographs with her camera, she came away with a much broader image library than a collection of traditional headshots alone.