The question I ask every client before picking up my camera
Before any shoot, I meet clients for a coffee and no camera. We have a chat either in person or virtually.
Somewhere in that conversation, I ask one question. It's not complicated, and most people haven't been asked it before: what do you actually want people to feel when they look at these photos?
I ask it early because the answer changes what we do next. As a brand photographer, I'd rather spend an hour figuring that out than spend a whole shoot day guessing and hoping it comes together in the edit.
It's a short meeting (usually 1-1.5 hours). It's usually the part of the process most people never see, and it's the part that actually decides whether the photos end up working.
Why I don’t just turn up with the camera
In some instances with other photographers, you book a slot, you turn up, you shoot for a couple of hours, everyone goes home with a memory card of nice-looking images. Nothing wrong with that if all you need is a few decent shots.
However, personal brand photography is doing a job and it needs strategy and story. It sits on your homepage, your Instagram grid, the email you send to a hesitant new enquiry. If nobody's worked out what that job actually is beforehand, you end up with images that look fine but don't do anything and you usually can't put your finger on why.
So I ask the question first, and I let the answer direct the next stage in the process.
What happens over coffee
The meeting itself is relaxed and open. I ask you about the business (not the elevator-pitch version, the real one). I ask about what your clients know you for, how you would describe your business to a stranger you just met and what your values are.
You might be thinking that most of this has nothing to do with photography on the surface. But it's how I find out what actually needs showing. I get to know more about you and that matters to me to photograph you in a meaningful way.
I remember one client telling me, almost as an aside, that she teaches process alongside practicalities through coaching and that was the whole point of her business. That one detail ended up shaping half the shot list. Nobody would have got that solely from a mood board.
The question itself
What do you want someone to feel when they see these photos?
The female founders I have worked with take their time to give me a considered answer and I always appreciate the pause they take. It shows consideration and careful thought. If there are prompts that are needed, I provided these to further guide and support.
Once someone lands on an answer, the rest of the meeting aligns perfectly.
Talking about brand values properly
From there we get into brand values. If someone says confidence matters to their brand, I want to know what that looks like when they're mid-session with a client, not just how they'd describe themselves on a form. If calm is the thing, I want to know what that looks like in the room in terms of pace, tone and the way they explain something twice without getting impatient.
That's the bit that actually translates into a photograph. A value on its own is just a word. What it looks like in practice is something I can capture.
Building the shot list
Once we've got that far, we build the shot list together, and it's specific to them rather than pulled from somewhere generic. A coach might need a few strong personal brand headshots, plus some genuinely candid shots of a session in progress. Someone running a shop might barely need headshots at all it's more about the shelves, the till point, the regulars who wander in.
We also talk about where each image is actually going. A shot built for a website header behaves differently to one built for Instagram. Headshots for a LinkedIn profile aren't doing the same job as an in-action photo on a services page. It matters to have these considerations in place so each photo can be doing the job it needs to.
Colour and outfits
Colour comes up here too, mostly practically. If someone's brand is bright and bold, I don't tone it down to look "professional" in the traditional or generic sense, I photograph them how they show up in their business.
Clothing is similar and I'd rather someone wore what they'd actually wear to meet a client than a stiff outfit bought specifically for the shoot. It reads as more relaxed in the photos, and it means they'll still recognise themselves in six months' time.
Getting to the story
The last part of the conversation is usually the one people didn't expect to have. It’s my favourite part and it explains why they do this particular job, in this particular way.
This is where a lot of personal brand photography stays surface-level with nice lighting, nice smile and no sense of why any of it matters. My job in this part of the meeting is mostly listening with minimal guidance from me on what made them start, perhaps what a client said once that they've never forgotten and the thing that annoys them about how their industry is usually presented.
I had one client who kept coming back to the same thing without realising it. She mentioned how much time she'd spent early on trying to force herself into ways of working that clearly weren't hers, before she built something that actually fit. She hadn't planned to talk about it, it just kept surfacing. That became the thread running through her whole shoot, not as one obvious "story shot," but in the way we photographed her actually working, rather than performing being organised.
Your story sometimes turns into one specific photograph and often it just means I understand someone well enough that it shows up naturally across the whole shoot, without needing to force it into any single shot.
Post coffee thoughts
By the time we leave, I have a deeper sense of who you are, what you do and why you do it. This gives me the exact insights I need to add the final touches to your shoot. I go away and turn that into an actual shot list and a loose running order for the day, and send it over so there's nothing to guess at when we meet again with a camera.
The shoot day itself is calmer and you are not standing around wondering what's next, and positioned stiffly and being told to "just be natural" with no context for what that means. We already know what we're aiming for. We get to enjoy the day together and capture you and your story.
Final thoughts
The question: “what do you want someone to feel…” is doing more work than it looks like it's doing. It's the main reason the shot list, the colours, and the story all end up pointing the same direction, instead of pulling in three different ones.
It's also, honestly, the difference between a photoshoot and brand photography for coaches, founders, and small business owners that actually does what it’s supposed to when it’s live on your website and social media. As a brand photographer working with founders across Nottingham, this is the part of the process I care most about, making sure I get to know you so I can photograph you in a way that is meaningful, credible and true to your brand.
If you're in or around the East Midlands (Nottingham, Leicester, Loughborough and Derby) or Milton Keynes and London and you're curious what that coffee conversation might turn up for your own business, I'd genuinely like to find out. Get in touch, and let's have a chat and pick the package that may work best for you.
Curious what your coffee meeting would uncover?
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