Business Branding Photos at Recess Beer Garden

Business branding photos are a great way to create an image for a business, telling customers a little bit about the atmosphere of the business and what it will be like working with them. You can create a style for a brand and keep a consistent tone with imagery online associate with it. Here is how I completed a recent branding photoshoot for a new startup helping people advance their careers and move in the direction they want to go professionally.

Learn About the Business

The first and most important part of this process is to meet with a representative from the business to get to know more about their message, their audience, and the tone they want to set with their images. In this case, this was a business that was just getting started and I was working directly with the owner. This business is a course that people can take to get career advice and achieve fulfilling progress in their professional lives. Her and I had a few video calls to get to know each other and talk about her business. During this step, I want to gather as much information about her and her business so that I can provide photos that she’ll love and that will properly represent her brand. For this specific shoot, the priority was capturing content to fill out her website and to be used to represent the image of the business in general online.

Knowing this, the next thing I’d want to learn is what the idea customer is for this business and what the experience of taking the course will look like. I learned that this course isn’t just a bank of online videos someone will watch like a lot of online courses are. It is much more intimate, personalized and community driven. We will want a group of “young professional” types to play the role of people taking the course. They will act out scenarios that the course will provide, like engaging learning, studying together, the owner giving personalized help in 1 on 1 and group settings as well as casual get-togethers within the community of people who developed connections through taking the course together. We really wanted to showcase the courses goal to create community and connections within it's participants. We discussed different ideas for photos that could convey these values and put together a loose shot list.

The other important piece of the business to highlight is the owner herself, since she will play such a key role in providing the personalized advice and curriculum to the participants. She was extremely friendly, well spoken and professional, while having a very casual and inviting vibe about her. This is definitely something we will want to highlight in these photos. Potential customers should see these images and immediately know that she will make them feel comfortable, but also that she knows her stuff.

For the overall tone and style of the photos, it can be very helpful to get the business representative to send over some examples of pictures they have seen before that they really resonated with. This helps me really get on the same page for how these photos should generally look. Of course, we are not here to copy someone else’s work, but to use it as inspiration and a template for the vibe of the photos. in this case, she put together a Pinterest board of photos she liked for me to reference when putting together a shot list.

Picking Locations

After having gathered enough information about her and her business, next was to pick an appropriate location to do the photoshoot. A general stylistic theme for her brand was growth represented through nature, specifically trees, so the location should be somewhere that has some trees and or nice natural wooden things like furniture/background elements. She for sure wanted to do some pictures in front of a mural that her friend painted on the West side of Recess Beer Garden in LoHi Denver. When she said that it just clicked, the large patio area at Recess would be just perfect to do these pictures at. It has lots of different sections allowing us to get a variety of different backgrounds, it is outside with trees and nice wood structures/seating all over. With just a handful of props and the right time of day, we could make the space look like a cafe or a casual outdoor meeting space. This, plus it is literally the same location as the mural.

I emailed Recess to see if they would be interested in hosting this photoshoot. We would plan on doing it an hour before they opened on a Sunday so that we would have the place to ourselves and not interfere with any paying customers. Tip for you photographers out there, offer to give them the final photos for free to use for their own marketing/social media purposes (get permission from your client to offer this first) and you’ll get a better chance of a response. They were super excited to have us and we locked in our date for the photoshoot.

Based on our meetings, we knew we also wanted some pictures that looked a little more like a professional office setting. This one did not require large spaces or a public setting so this location could be easily achieved by rearranging her living room since that room had a ton of plants in it which would make for a perfect backdrop. With our 2 locations and our date locked in, next was preparing everything for the shoot.

Preparing for the Photoshoot

Since we were going to make recess look like a cute little cafe, we were going to need to bring some props for that. this included coffee mugs, plates, cute little table settings, plants, and pastries (her fantastic idea). There was also supposed to be an element of work to these photos (think study group meeting at a cafe) so we’d also need to bring laptops, notebooks, nice-looking pens, etc. She gathered a group of her friends to be the models and communicated to them that the dress attire should be trendy professional.

As far as gear, I brought a lot. With this being an outdoor location around 10am late fall when the days are rapidly shortening and us having the first snow of the season just a few days prior, I couldn’t count on the lighting being a specific way, so I wanted to be prepared for anything. I brought a diffuser in case we were getting harsh, direct of sunlight, bounce cards to fill in shadows, 2 flashes in case the sun was going to put up a fight, and stands, clamps, tape, etc. because well, you never know. Spoiler, I barely used any of this equipment for the shoot, but since I wasn’t going to have to carry anything around during the shoot, I’d rather overpack, then run into a situation where we are being significantly limited by the lighting that day. For something like senior, couples, or family photos, I would not recommend this approach since you’ll be lugging all of that gear around for the whole shoot.

How the Photoshoot Went

the lighting on the day of the shoot was not half bad. There was a very light cloud cover, which meant we still had a decent amount of sunlight coming in, but it wasn’t terribly harsh. Recess also has a fair amount of covered areas, giving this half outside half inside setting which was perfect. Towards the end of the shoot, the clouds burned off so I did have to recruit one of our models to hold up a diffuser to soften up that sunlight for some shots.

This group was absolutely amazing during the shoot. I could tell they were feeling comfortable and confident on camera. I would pose a scene, telling people where to sit and positioning props, then just give them a prompt like “have an energetic group conversation” or “you point at his laptop screen and explain something interesting to the group”. I mostly did this vague prompting and photographed the scene unfolding before me. Making my subjects feel comfortable in front of the camera and making sure they are having a good time is extremely important because it conveys a much more natural and appealing atmosphere through the photos in subtle ways. It is important to read your subjects and provide the type and amount of posing that they need. If they don’t need much posing and can just get immersed into a moment, let them do that and be ready to capture the great moments as they show themselves. Some people feel more comfortable if you provide very specific posing instructions for each shot and if that’s the case, you need to be ready to provide that. it is a bit of a spectrum and being in tune with that as a photographer really elevates the experience people have working with you.

Another important thing to look out for is little details that are off with a picture. Is someone’s shirt collar looking weird? Did a person’s hair get a little messed up at some point? These are little things that will not only make your pictures look better and reduce the amount of editing you have to do, but they also increase everyone’s confidence in your ability to do a good job making people feel more comfortable during the photoshoot.

Since we had done so much planning and prepping for the shoot, capturing the photos was just a matter of executing the plan we had and having a good time, which we did! After finishing up at recess, a small group of people went back to her house to get our “office” pictures.

Finishing Up

Lastly was the editing and delivery of the photos. I won’t get into editing here. I made sure to send copies over to Recess as promised. When all was said and done, I delivered around 80 photos in the final gallery.

This was a super fun shoot start to finish that exemplifies the importance of the work a photographer does before the day of the shoot. I was able to capture images that perfectly fit the brand of this new business by taking the time to get to know the business and its owner. Not only will this improve the outcome and customer experience of the shoot, but it also will help you connect with you clients in more meaningful ways. I really enjoyed working with this client and would love if we could work together again in the future!

Business Branding Photos In Denver Colorado

Do you need some branding photos to represent your business online? I offer these and many other types of shoots in and around the Denver area (not opposed to travel, HMU). Take the first step by submitting an inquiry through my contact form so we can start talking about you and your business!