You might notice things look a little different around here.
Waaaay back in 2010, I had a designer create a WordPress template for me. It was green, and I loved it. Until last year, when Mobilegeddon hit.
You see, Google stopped indexing websites that didn’t work on mobile, and mine was old enough that it didn’t. I had to scrap it, in favour of a mobile-friendly, but temporary theme.
Ha! “Temporary” turned into more than a year… The thought of redesigning my site felt overwhelming, as there were many steps to go through before I could launch the new site.
But everything started with getting new photos. Once I had the photos, I could choose the theme, customize it, and transfer over all my old content. But first, I needed photos. I really wanted something that showed more of my personality. I wanted people visiting my blog for the first time to see that I’m fun and maybe a little quirky.
I’m really happy with the final resulting photoshoot, done for me by Wendy D Photo. And I thought I’d share with you what I learned going through the process, and how you too, can find perfect fit photography for your blog.
Know your brand. What are the keywords that you want associated with you? When people thing about you, what do yo, what feeling do you want to leave people with? For me, my personal brand is all about two things: social media and food. I also wanted the photos to convey a kind of authority, a confidence.
Research online. Visit the blogs and websites of people who deal with similar subjects. What do their websites look like? What kind of imagery do they use? Make note of the ones you really like and bookmark them. For me, from this step, I learned that I really like a clean website, lots of white space, minimalistic and simple to navigate.
Research photographers. Start with your friends, especially if they are local and bloggers. Who shot their photos (if you like their photos). Put it out to Facebook and see what kind of recommendations you get.
Check out their stuff. Go to the photographers online portfolio, and see if they have photos on there that are like the ones you are looking for. In this particular case, it really pays to hire a professional. Don’t leave this one up to your friend with the camera and fate.
Meet with the photographer. When I met with Wendy to talk about my session, I brought along examples of what I was interested in, and we talked about outfits, styling, indoors versus outdoors, and what my goals were for the session. Part of the reason I picked her is because she really gets corporate communications. This was not just a headshot session. I needed specific images that were going to work for headers, etc, and she got that.
Hair/makeup/styling. Wendy actually encouraged me to do my own makeup, as we both agreed we wanted the final result to look as natural and as like “me” as possible. A couple of less-costly options you could explore, though include going to a makeup store/counter (like MAC) and getting them to do your makeup, or going to a beauty school and booking an appointment with one of their students. Bring along photos of yourself to your makeup appointment, to ensure you don’t come out looking “over the top.” You want to look like a more polished version of yourself. I did decide to spring to get my hair done, because, honestly, I just don’t have the patience to deal with it. I went to Blo, and was quite happy with the results. I brought along 2 outfits–one for the indoor, more socially-media themed shoot (with a t-shirt I’d had printed) and one more girly and generic for getting a classic headshot look.
