As a small business owner who wants to make the most polished and professional impression you can to establish a report with your potential customers, you know the importance of a consistent aesthetic that is recognizable and easily linked with your brand. You value consistency and brand recognition for your business whether you’re posting on social media, being featured in a publication, featuring a product or service in an advertisement or simply connecting one-on-one in person with your customers.

Keeping a consistent aesthetic to help your people connect with your brand is a detailed process. That’s why, when it comes to creating the most useful collection of brand photographs, we start with our 10 fundamental brand photographs that every small business needs and then build from there.

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1. Headshot

   Headshots are a great way to have an immediate, personal connection with the viewer. They can be used to introduce your team members on your website and social media platforms, letting your clients know who they are and their specialties.
   Headshots can also be a great option to have on hand to quickly send to a publication that may be writing a feature on a specific individual and their skills/contributions. Headshots are some of the most basic and versatile photographs you can use as a business owner.

Headshot created to capture the personal brand of Donna M, a local Publications Manager. | Winston-Salem Headshot and Brand Photographer | Jasper & Fern

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Staff portrait created during a headshot and branding session for local Winston-Salem small business Salem Law - including the very important office pet! | Winston-Salem Small Business Photographer | Jasper & Fern

2. Your Team

Portraits of your team and staff together are a great way to showcase the atmosphere of your company. The relationship between co-workers and between the company owner and their employees gives a customer valuable insight into how they may be treated and the general values of your company.

Some of our favorite ways to use these professional portraits are for your website About or Contact page, thank you cards and greeting cards, and for sharing news involving your whole team.

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Brand photograph for Pfafftown, NC small business, Riverside Farm and Garden, showcasing the friendly and informative atmosphere you can expect at their shop. | Winston-Salem Business and Brand Photogragraphy | Jasper & Fern

3. You and Your Team at Work

Another way to build a brand atmosphere for your potential clients is to showcase you and your team at work. A client can glean valuable insight like how important each project or client is to you or the attention that will be given to their need through witnessing your team work. These photographs give your Customer Care a chance to shine!

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Brand photograph for WO Designs, a Winston-Salem based Interior Design company, showcasing the layouts they create for clients when styling their spaces. | Winston-Salem Small Business and Brand Photographer | Jasper & Fern

4. Products & Services You Provide

Reinforcing your copy with attractive images depicting what you do can make you memorable to your potential clients. When they land on your website, advertisement or a social media post, they are receiving information about what you do visually as well as contextually. The more you can do to make yourself memorable the better - especially in a fast paced world that requires content to grab a person’s attention.

Use photographs like this to help tell the story of your process, give clarity on what you do and provide insight into your brand personality.

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5. Tools of Your Trade

Sometimes it can be difficult to explain to a potential client what it is you do - especially if your niche is so unique and unknown that everything you do is new information to your audience. Showcasing the tools you work with can help you stand out from your competition and be memorable. You can also use these types of brand photographs to provide you the opportunity to speak about a specific part of your process or share valuable educational information with your client.

Brand photograph created for Charlotte based doula, Mama Mpenzi Doula, showcasing her go-bag and essentials for meeting and caring for her expecting mothers at the hospital. | Winston-Salem Small Business and Brand Photographer | Jasper & Fern.

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Brand photograph created for Title Boxing in Clemmons, NC showcasing their boxing lessons. | Winston-Salem Small Business and Brand Photographer | Jasper & Fern

6. Working with Your Customer

When a customer can see what it looks like to work with you, that’s one more important step towards them paying for your services! Many people have apprehension about new experiences or services/products they are not familiar with. You can eliminate those fears by showing your customers not only what it looks like to work with you but also how it feels to work together.

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Brand photograph created for Cooper Counseling, a Mount Airy based counselor, showcasing an office atmosphere that attracts and helps their target client feel comfortable. | Winston-Salem Brand Photographer | Jasper & Fern

7. Your Brand Atmosphere & Location

A potential client can tell a lot about your business by how the atmosphere comes across. Just think about a dentist’s office that has dim lighting, grey carpets and white walls with a greenish hue and no magazines, friendly photographs or comfortable furniture to be seen. Would you feel relaxed walking into this office to have them poke around in your mouth with sharp tools? Likely not - unless your target audience is clinical people with nerves of steel, that is. That’s why you want your building, office or created space to appeal to your specific customer. (Don’t have an office or building but want to create a similar atmosphere? We have a skill for that! Just email us and let us know what you’re looking for.)

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Brand photograph for our own studio, Jasper & Fern, showcasing our work tools and notable personality items that capture the heart of our brand. | Winston-Salem Small Business and Brand Photographer | Jasper & Fern

8. Brand Details of What You Do & Your Brand Personality

Photographs that showcase your brand personality through details help round out a client’s impression of you and general experience with your brand. These photographs provide you an opportunity to share details, stories or experiences in a softer, more subtle way so that your audience doesn’t feel like you are constantly selling to them or promoting yourself.

Keeping a consistent aesthetic with your branded detail photographs gives a polished appeal to your business.

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9. Personality/Lifestyle Portrait

These days people don’t want to only see the traditional headshot when they are seeking out a business. They want to learn a brand’s story and invest in the personality and values behind a company. Having Personality/Lifestyle brand portraits is the perfect way to build this relationship - and there are a plethora of ways to do this!

Brand Portrait for small business Carla Day Consulting, a Winston-Salem based health inspector, showcasing the confident, firm and intense personality she has when she is advocating for a client. | Winston-Salem Branding Photographer | Jasper & Fern

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Brand photograph created for Yudy McGuinness Artistry, a Winston-Salem, NC small business, created as a hero image for advertisements and for a banner on her social media accounts. | Winston-Salem Business and Brand Photogragraphy | Jasper & Fern

10. The Hero Shot

Having a captivating photograph that brings all the elements of your business and brand - what you do, how you make people feel, etc - is pertinent to having well rounded brand aesthetics that appeal to your target market. This image should be recognizable and unique and used often. Ideally, this photograph will give you the platform to speak about any topic related to your brand or business.

I’m here to answer this one question for you, yes you, you hard working, small business owner who wants something different for your brand other than studio photos.

On-location brand portrait for Winston-Salem based small business marketer, Mallory Schlabach. | Winston-Salem Business and Brand Photographer | Jasper & Fern

Y-E-S! On location brand photography is a great option for your business!

Not all branding photographs need to happen in a photography studio. They can happen anywhere! Your brand photographs need to serve you.

If that means you need them on-location on a rooftop or a beach or in a library or in the forest or in your attic or on a farm or at your storefront or your shop - a.n.y.w.h.e.r.e. - then that’s what needs to happen. You know your brand best. Don’t be afraid to ask for the atypical.

On-location branding photography can help you stand out. It provides the opportunity to show what you do in a creative way. It can give your audience a more intimate glimpse into your life and the inner workings of your vision. It can even showcase your business WHY in a creative way.

So go on, you awesome small business owner, put your vision out there and let’s create brand photographs that sell your unique story!

“Life is not pretty all the time.”

— Natalie, Owner of Updog Wellness

We each sat, gathering our words, mulling over the difference we knew was there. It was equally important to us both that what we shared was authentic. There’s a difference, you see, between realizing a concept and fabricating a reality. It’s a line that I walk often as a branding photographer; a line that’s important to walk carefully and intentionally for my clients because perception can be delicate.

Many of the small business owners I work with provide a service or product that doesn’t require them to have a brick and mortar storefront or physical office. Instead, they create space for themselves anywhere that lets them get their work done - in their spare bedroom, at their dining room table, around their pool, at coffee shops or co-working collectives. They pour themselves into the details of their business, working hard to have a brand with a personality, voice, aesthetic - all of it - that they build their client relationships through. This branding, however, isn’t always something that is communicated in the space they’ve created for themselves to do work. So, when it comes to bring their clients into their story through brand photography, sometimes we need to get a little creative.

Cultivating an authentic, branded space for a small business owner to step into and immediately feel at home is one of our favorite (and most rewarding) challenges. As many of our past branding clients can attest from the time we share together digging into every aspect of their business, we care about the littlest details. Curating a branded space is about more than pooling items that have your brand colors and putting them together in photographs. It’s about sharing parts of your lifestyle, helping your people get to know you through subtle personal touches; it’s incorporating your brand voice & personality while simultaneously creating a space you’d love to call your own.

Many times in this cultivating process we’re starting with a blank slate in the form of an empty room with a floor that matches the undertones of your brand personality and walls painted a color that will compliment your brand aesthetics while making sure it will look cohesive on your website and social media. Other times we are starting on location in a place you frequent or at an establishment that lends itself well to your brand messaging. From there, we build up the essentials of your story - what you’ll be sharing with your target audience, how you’ll be sharing, and what parts of your business you’ll be welcoming your clients into. As we create this space, it’s important to make it authentic to you and not cross the line into “contrived” territory. When you step into the space, we want it to feel like someplace you’ve always been. If you feel at home, your clients will feel that way too.

“I really appreciate all the personal touches you threw in and the hard work you put into my session.”

— Jessica C, Owner of Cooper Counseling PLLC and Jasper & Fern branding client

I sat with Natalie, a while back, thinking through the best way for her to show up authentically and realistically in her brand photography. (You may remember Natalie - the no-nonsense small business owner who was juggling newly wed life with two kids, teaching yoga classes and running her business Updog Wellness. - click here to see her session) She worked out of her home serving her clients virtually while also floating from studio to studio to host in person training sessions and classes. I remember this conversation with her specifically because we discussed her RBF (Resting B* Face) in addition to how we could show her at work without entering her windowless home office that she shared with her boys as a playroom. While brainstorming, Natalie made a comment that I thought perfectly captured the intentional balance of depicting her reality with integrity and realizing her brand through her photographs.

“I want my people to see that I’ve been there too; that life is not pretty all the time; that it takes hard work to get where we want to be,” she said with seriousness in her eyes.

It was important for her to show up in a way that was honest and authentic without coming off abrasive, unfocused or contrived. She embraced and appreciated the space in which she could work, the comftoribility of being at home and that she shared the same situation with many of her clients. Taking inspiration from her open-armed acceptance of her process, we even discussed leaving some unopened mail and a few stacks of projects in the workspace we were creating for her, showing a little personal insight into how she operates and maintaining the integrity of her life and brand. These simple elements helped make her curated space more personal, more authentic and provided her the platform to speak authentically in her brand voice.

Head photographer, Alyson, taking a moment to “live” in the space she created before filling it with her branding client’s personal items. | Winston-Salem Business and Brand Photography | Jasper & Fern

That, right there as Natalie said it, is the intentional balance of showing up authentically in your brand. It’s keeping your integrity, being vulnerable and bringing people into your world. It’s sharing your brand story transparently and honestly, even if you don’t have a storefront or office. It’s a challenge, perhaps, but it’s also the opportunity to bring the heart of your business into reality in the form of a branded space, down to the littlest details.

“A mom needs love too!”

— Emily, Mama Mpenzi Doula

Brand Photograph for Mama Mpenzi Doula | Winston-Salem Branding Photography | Jasper & Fern

I wonder if you could guess the story behind this brand photograph we did for Mama Mpenzi Dula. It seems like an odd image to come across your screen, does it not? Does it make you curious to know what it's about? If you are someone who is drawn to nature and natural elements, who likes calming imagery and soft feminine tones, I can almost guarantee that you would stick around to read this story - and that is what a good brand photograph should do.

So what is the story behind the photograph? (I’m going to go ahead and put out there - it’s super sweet!)  

As a mom herself, Emily was inspired to give other first-time moms what she needed during her own first child’s birth and pregnancy. Her biggest needs were Community and Support.

Emily is a strong believer in surrounding yourself with good people who are wise, love you purely and respect you. From this value, she created the Birthtual.

“Mom needs some love too,” Emily said to me while explaining the ritual.

A Birthtual is a designated celebration that’s all about the pregnant mom.  It’s a time where all the women in that mom’s life who’ve had children and are who she depends on (aka - her rocks), come together for a time of community and support. The expecting mom sits in the middle of a room while the experienced mothers come together in a circle around her agreeing to creating a safe, non-judgemental space. The mom gets to share her fears, her joys and ask all the questions she wants answers to and, in turn, the experienced mothers share their own wisdom.

(I’m taking a moment to relish in the peace of what a setting like that would bring... *deep breath*)

Our goal was to bring that supporting atmosphere into a photograph that was rooted in her branding; a soft feminine brand that values the naturalness of birth, support and community. In the end, we created an image that mimics her brand values while simultaneously incorporates elements of her logo, uses her brand colors and provides Emily the platform to talk about a service that makes her unique.