8 Reasons Every Business Needs Professional Photographs

If you don’t have professional photographs, you’re missing an easy win. Photographs connect you with your audience without a word, but you want to ensure your photographs are telling the story you intended.

Credibility

Without professional photographs you look like you’re not an established brand. Everyone has to start somewhere and photographs feel like a luxury, but the absence of professional photographs signals where you are in your business.

We all make judgements about businesses based on their photographs. We also make assumptions based on the absence of them – how many people without a profile image do you connect with on LinkedIn?

Trust

Using the same photographer for all your imagery creates consistency and consistency fosters trust. People start to feel like they know you. I recently had a message on one of my posts saying, “I feel like I know you already from your posts”. I’m consistent in how often I post, but also, all my images are by the same photographer – me.

Profit

The recent IRCE report revealed that 75% of people said image quality was the most important feature when shopping online. This was talking about products, but the same applies if you’re offering a service because then you’re the product. People want to know what you look like. If they like your images, then they’re more likely to engage with you and ultimately become your client. Photographs sell you.

Photographs Communicate at High Speed

It’s not just your face people are looking at in your images. Others elements may only be absorbed at a sub-conscious level though. That sub-conscious is the most powerful because it’s all emotional and we are emotional buyers.

Everything in the image is talking – your hair, makeup, tatoos, clothing, piercings, setting and most importantly – your expression. The absence of makeup, tattoos or careless dress also make a statement. 

So many signals fire off from an image in one glance. We call it instinct as to whether or not we take to someone, but instinct is formed by the associations we develop, particularly in childhood, and also throughout our lives.

This means you have to know your audience.

Connection and Belonging

Facial recognition is so important to us that there’s a whole section of our brains solely dedicated to facial recognition. When we see a face, we get a little buzz. It’s the same buzz you get when you’re at a networking meeting and you find someone who grew up in the same town as you or you discover you both love the same music and film – you feel pleasure that someone “just gets you” – they’re your tribe. 

How you present yourself can either increase or decrease that sense of connection.

We’re all working out, through a series of almost indescribable signals, where we belong. Photographs are a massive part of that process in business.

Personal branding and all portrait imagery is about self-expression, connecting and belonging.

A Good Image Isn’t Just About Correct Exposure

Because camera phones are very good, many people think they can do their own images, but a well exposed image isn’t what photography is about. A well exposed image is the absolute basic starting point and almost anyone can do that now. A great image is curated.

Building Meaning and Direction into Your Images

You build layers of meaning and interest into images by using setting, pose, composition, colour, hair, makeup, clothing, accessories, lighting and, most importantly, expression to tell the story you want to tell.

If you’re interested in learning more about how to create images that connect and build trust, please email nina@ninacarrington.com for a free consultation.

Please find me on FB and IG as @ninacarrringtonphotography and LI @ninacarrington