Personal brand photography

The session is planned backwards from where the pictures will be used. Before the day, the photographer reads your website and profiles and asks what you are launching, then builds a shot list: a wide portrait for a homepage header, tighter portraits for profiles, you at a laptop or with a notebook, you teaching or talking, and close details of your hands, tools and products. Thirty minutes covers one setting and one look; a coworking space or café in Roma or Condesa in Mexico City, a terrace in Playa del Carmen or a colonial street in San Miguel de Allende are typical settings, and every private business among them needs to agree to the camera first. A second location, an outfit change or a longer session can be added and is quoted in writing before booking.

Light and heat decide the hours. The first or last two hours of daylight keep skin even and backgrounds soft; midday sun in a coastal destination flattens faces and makes people visibly hot within minutes. Bring one outfit in a solid colour that fits your brand, in linen or cotton. If any picture is meant for paid advertising, a book cover or a product sold by someone else, agree that use in writing before the session, and get a signed release from any client or colleague who appears.

This is not a headshot session. A headshot is a tight portrait for a profile, made at an office against a plain or blurred background. Personal brand photography, in the same 30 minutes, is a set of scenes, and its value is the range of situations rather than the one perfect face. If what you need is social video as well as stills, the social content service adds short clips.