Before & After: Lifestyle headshot session in Esher

branding shoots in my garden lifestyle studio

my mini branding shoots from last year

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Photographer and personal brand strategist. I'm on a mission to help you get visible in your business with genuine confidence.

Meet Vicki

I had been itching to do Jo Mir’s headshots for ages and finally I got my chance! I’ve known Jo for a while and so I could see that the photo she was using for social networking just didn’t do her or her business justice. I was desperate to show her how gorgeous she could really look!

Jo sells beautiful jewellery through Jo Magdelena and runs a team of consultants. She is also an all round lovely person! I met her in late 2009 when I set up a local business mums networking group. We started chatting at the first networking meeting I organised and she kindly offered to organise the meetings with me. I was delighted as it was pretty lonely doing it by myself! We’ve since had to stop doing the meetings as we just didn’t have the time to commit to it, especially since I had baby Sam last summer. But Jo and I have continued to stay in contact, and chat on Twitter and meet up with other local business mums.

Every time I suggested doing her headshots, she muttered some vague excuses; luckily I didn’t take it personally! Then fortunately, when she saw the headshots I had done for other local business mums such as Paula Trovalusci and Fiona MacDuff, she finally booked a headshot session with me. It was then she admitted that the reason she’d never booked me before was that she hated having her photo taken!

Hopefully this before and after below show why I was so delighted that she decided to get some professional images taken!

I hope you agree it’s a huge improvement! What a difference it will make to the image she portrays when networking online. Here are some more from our session….

As you can see, my lifestyle headshot sessions don’t conform to the traditional ‘white backdrop, awkward expression’ kind of headshots. My aim with headshots is to capture the real person. People buy from people, and they want to see the real you, not you sitting on a stool looking like you wish you weren’t there! Which is why I do all of my headshot sessions out on location. I get to know the person a bit first, then spend a while photographing them in different spots. Normally by the end of the session they feel totally comfortable and are posing for the camera like a pro!

I’ve rambled on before about the benefits of having a great headshot for your business, but one benefit all of the ladies I’ve photographed have found is a huge boost in their confidence. I would say 90% of ladies say to me ‘I hate having my photo taken’ and that’s normally because they have only seen their photos taken on compact cameras with direct flash. This is very unflattering! So then when they see professional photos of themselves for the first time, they realise just how gorgeous they are! And this is with no dieting, no professional make up or hair, and no airbrushing. Just the real them, but in great light and taken by a professional photographer!

A big thanks to Jo for finally booking me to do her headshots and for being a very lovely friend too. x