How to Prepare for Your Brand Photoshoot

(From Someone Who Does This for a Living)

If you’ve booked a brand shoot — or you’re thinking about it — and you’re already wondering what on earth do I wear and how do I make this worth the money, this one’s for you.

Here’s my whole philosophy as a brand photographer and content strategist: don’t shoot for one photo. Shoot for a bank of content. Batch it. Bulk produce. Walk away from one session with months of photos and videos ready to roll out across your website, your socials, your emails — wherever you need them. That’s how you get real value out of a shoot, and it’s exactly how I approach my own.

So when I recently did a brand shoot for my business — for my website, my course, and my socials all at once — I prepped the way I tell my clients to. Here’s exactly what I did.

1. Get clear on what the photos are actually for

Before anything else, I worked out where these photos needed to go: my website, my course, and my social media. Three very different homes, three different needs.

This matters more than people realise, because it changes what you shoot. I needed:

• Landscape (horizontal) shots for my website banners and headers
• Photos with negative space for socials — room around me where I could drop text later
• A spread of looks so it didn’t all feel like the same five minutes

So I told my photographer all of this upfront. Once she knew I needed website hero images and social-ready shots with text space, she could frame and compose with that in mind. A photographer can’t plan for a brief they don’t have — tell them where the photos are going and what you’ll use them for, and you’ll walk away with images that actually work, not just pretty pictures you can’t use.

Your move: Before your shoot, list every place these photos will live. Website? About page? Course? Instagram? Email header? Bring that list to your photographer.

2. Make a moodboard

I created a moodboard so I knew exactly what I was after — and just as importantly, so I could show my photographer the vision in my head.

Honestly, this is one of the most helpful things a client can do for me. When someone shows me photos of the vibe, the poses, the lighting, the energy they’re chasing, I can see their vision instead of guessing at it. Words only go so far. Images close the gap.

You don’t need anything fancy. A Pinterest board or a Canva collage does the job. Pull together shots that feel like you — the mood, the colours, the way people are standing, the feeling you want the photos to give off.

Your move: Start a board. Add anything that makes you go yes, that. Share it with your photographer before the day.

3. Bring your big ideas — even the “weird” ones

I had this idea of standing on top of my car. When I said it out loud, it didn’t fully make sense to my photographer — but it made complete sense for my brand. I wanted to show elevated, literally. My whole thing is helping founders rise, so there I was, up on the car.

The lesson: the ideas that feel a bit out-there are often the ones that say the most about your brand. Don’t talk yourself out of them, and don’t assume your photographer will think they’re silly. Bring them. Explain the why behind them. A good photographer will run with it once they understand what it represents for you.

Your move: Write down any concept that feels true to your brand, even if you can’t quite justify it logically. Those are usually the gold.

4. What to wear (the part everyone stresses about)

Here’s how I handled outfits, and what I’d tell any client:

Bring 4–6 different looks. Different tops, different hats, different shoes. Each outfit change reads as a brand-new photo, which means more variety in your content bank from a single session. This is batching in action — change your shirt, change your whole vibe.

A few simple guidelines:

• Avoid large stripes and polka dots. Busy patterns can do strange things on camera and they pull focus away from you.
• Keep it fairly simple. Simple lets you be the focus, not your clothes.
• But more importantly — stay you. I wore my hat because my hat is me. The whole point of a brand shoot is that it looks and feels like the real you, not a costume. Wear the things that make you feel like yourself.

That last one is the rule that overrides all the others. Simple is good, no clashing patterns is good — but authentic beats every styling tip. If a “rule” makes you feel like you’re playing dress-up, ditch it.

Your move: Lay out 4–6 outfits the night before. Mix in your signature pieces — the hat, the jacket, the shoes that are unmistakably you. Skip the loud patterns. Then check: does each look feel like me?

The thread running through all of this

Prep isn’t about being rigid — it’s about being intentional. Know what the photos are for, show your photographer your vision, bring your boldest ideas, and turn up as the truest version of yourself. Do that, and you don’t just get nice photos. You get a whole content bank you’ll be pulling from for months.

That’s the difference between a photoshoot and a brand shoot. One gives you a profile picture. The other gives you content that works as hard as you do.

Thinking about a brand shoot of your own? This is exactly the kind of intentional, content-first approach I bring to every session ~ photos and videos planned around where they’ll actually live, so you walk away with a bank of content ready to go. Get in touch and let’s plan yours.