Let’s face it, you can do a lot with a cell phone camera these days. You may think it makes financial sense to do brand photography yourself.  But when you look at the time, expertise, and equipment involved to do it right, you may find you’re not actually saving that much by going the DIY route.

Brand photography can be expensive. But when you look at the time and effort involved in creating quality brand photography yourself, you may find hiring a professional is a much better value. Here are a few things to consider when making your decision:

Good Brand Photography Takes Planning

Like anything marketing related, brand photography takes a lot of planning. You must factor in brand messaging, the resources you have, how you plan to use the images, and a number of other things into it to get photography that’s truly usable for your campaigns. You also don’t want your photography to look like a DIY project – you want your brand to look first class!

This is where an experienced brand photographer can shine! For example, at Karen K Photo, our brand sessions include an in-depth planning meeting where we discuss your brand, what audience you’re trying to target, and how to create images that will work for what you’re trying to accomplish. We use our marketing expertise to create exactly the images you need. You’ll get a professional looking result, without all the stress of having to figure it out yourself.

The Logistics of a Brand Shoot Can be Challenging

After the planning component comes the brand session itself. There are a lot of moving parts to coordinate. There’s choosing the location, bringing equipment and lighting, props/accessories, makeup and wardrobe, and sometimes even weather factors to consider. Do you have the expertise and equipment to create the look and feel you want? Do you have the confidence to work with changing conditions when working on location? If not, it may make your life a whole lot easier to hire a professional!

A professional brand photographer has all of the equipment, training, and expertise to make sure sessions go according to plan. They’re used to selecting locations that will work well, working in different locations, and adapting to changing situations. Imagine how much less stressful a brand session would be if you didn’t have to worry about those things!

Professional Brand Photography Can Save You Time

Do you have the time it takes to accomplish all of the above? Are you creative enough to come up with the ideas that will propel your marketing efforts forward? What if hiring a brand photographer could take all of that planning off of your plate? Good news! It can.

And you’ve all heard the saying: time is money.

There is a cost of doing things yourself, and a lot that cost comes in the form of time and stress. Is it worth hiring a professional to eliminate that? The answer is usually yes!

A well-planned brand session can generate a whole library of images that can fuel any number of marketing projects down the road. Rather than having a bunch of images that look almost the same or don’t quite work, you can have unique, well-designed images that fit perfectly in your marketing campaigns. No more hunting for the right phots - you’ll have a library of usable images at your fingertips ready to go.

You’ll also eliminate the need to purchase stock photos – an additional cost and time savings!

The cost of hiring a professional brand photographer may be intimidating at first. But what about the cost of doing it yourself? Once you factor everything in, you may find that doing it yourself costs more than you think!