Creating Connection Part 1
- June 16, 2022
- Monique Harmer
- 2 minute read
The most important goal when photographing brand imagery for a person or business, is the ability to create connection between the person and or business and the existing or potential customer.
how do you create connection using imagery?
- Firstly define what your brand means to you. The more defined you are about this the better the images.
- What’s your intention for the photo or video? This can be as simple as what type of outcome you want to achieve from your imagery, to understanding who the customer avatar is on a deeper level. This is all relevant when it comes to creating imagery that connects and sells for you.
- What’s in your background? is it a second story relating to your business or lifestyle or a clean background so the image has one main focal point?
- Is the person in the photo connecting with whoever is looking at the image?
Unless your headline directly relates to someone looking away EG – NOT at the camera, this is one of the most fundamental mistakes both business owners and in experienced photographers can make.
EYES TO CAMERA
In other words look at the person taking the photo. This is ingrained in every press photographer & photojournalist.
It doesn’t necessarily mean smile either. It relates to the headline, caption, editorial or story being told.
Or what’s being sold!
The intended feeling ‘CONNECTION’ the viewer gains from looking at the imagery.
This is why it’s so important to understand the intention first. Then work on matching your facial expression to communicate the intention. In an average photoshoot I can sometimes get more than 50-100 different facial expressions. Obviously the ones selected are the ones telling the story my clients want to tell.
How to photograph a leader
If you are a leader, speaker, or content/course creator identify all the areas in your business with a type of facial expression. You’ll be surprised at how many we all have every day during our busy work lives. A happy smiley face is important but so are those other deeper meaningful facial expressions.
A great example of what I mean is a copywriter I photographer a few years back check out his website Jon Maxum – THEMAXIM His personality oozes in his images on every page. This is a great example of a simple well thought out brand truly incorporating his personality within each page you click on.
Speakers and content creators quickly learn what type of images they need and usually have a long list of facial expressions and hand gestures, pre planned to go with captions, headlines, courses & seminars like these ones I took in the image below for Amanda last year.
Amanda being the leader she is knew exactly what she wanted to accomplish during the photoshoot, making the most of different facial expressions. These are just a few examples of how Amanda used the images on instagram. For a deeper insight visit Amandas LinkedIn | Website | Instagram
It really is this simple! Body language also plays a huge part in communication. I’ll go into detail about body language V’s awkward and unnatural posing in a later post.
Since I’m a visual communicator not a writer 🙂 The below paragraph is from a CBC article, I recently read, they break it down beautifly.
“Human facial expressions are one of the most important non-verbal ways we communicate. With 43 different muscles, our faces are capable of making more than 10,000 expressions, many of them tracing back to our primitive roots.”
creating connection & how you can use it
For a deeper insight into creating connection and how you can use it to your advantage watch a recording from our Facebook group zoom call.
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Monique Harmer
Our photoshoots are not just about taking pretty images they’re about taking your customers on a journey and gaining a better understanding about you and your business.
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Hi I'm Monique
Personal and business brand image expert. Photographer and educator who is super passionate about empowering business women and men to have a positive self perception, with the right tools and guidance so they can share their gifts with the world.
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