Earlier this year, I had the pleasure of reuniting with Jenna, from BAUGhaus, for her brand shoot. I’m pretty pumped about this blog post because I LOVE brand shoots.  This session just proved every single reason why I believe in these shoots. With a mix of behind the scenes photos, lifestyle headshots, and at-home life, Jenna draws her audience to really get to know her heart behind this labor of love she calls work. You’ve most likely heard the phrase: “An image is worth a thousand words.” This phrase couldn’t be truer in the world we live in today. Photography is more important than ever before in helping brands tell their story and connect with their target audience. 

WHAT IS BRAND PHOTOGRAPHY?

Brand Photography is the visual representation of your brand, creating intentional visual messages. It communicates that there is a real person/team behind the product or service and it allows the audience to experience a piece of what you are offering. You take what you discover in your branding process and reflect it into the photos of your products or services. If you are a florist, it will most likely include photographs of you processing flowers, arranging bouquets, detail photographs of your beautiful flowers out in the world and… you! Your potential clients need to see YOU in your branding.

IMPORTANCE OF BRAND PHOTOGRAPHY

I believe in strong branding, but the creation of your brand does not start or stop at the design of your logo. If you’ve been going through the process of (re)branding your business, you’ve probably already learned that there are many other aspects to it. Not only are the logos important, but your color scheme, fonts, and website design dictates emotion and implies feelings upon your users. With all of that said, we believe it’s important to represent your brand in a cohesive manner. If you’re spending some extra love and care on your logo, website, fonts, and marketing materials, you should follow through with complimentary, professional photography to represent yourself. The imagery behind your company represents YOU. Plus, images of your face and your process behind the scenes humanizes your company, inviting your audience to take stock in YOU.

Here are 5 reasons why I love brand sessions!

• Images generate emotion: Photography has the ability to quickly and easily convey the emotion that you want your audience to feel when introduced by your business. It is worth reviewing your brand’s images and asking yourself if they truly convey the emotion you desire.
• Photography is the first impression that your potential customers get of your brand. Think about it; the last time you heard of a new business, I bet you grabbed your iPhone, hopped onto Instagram and scrolled through their feed or possibly their website. Within a matter of a minute, you had an idea of what kind of brand they were. First impressions matter of your business matter! It connects your face to your company, making your brand more relatable. When you meet a client for the first time, you put forth the effort to present yourself in a professional manner, why wouldn’t you do the same with your imagery? Professional pictures are an essential part of telling your brand’s story.
• Photography has the ability to add perceived value… but photography can also create the opposite effect. Bad quality imagery can result in your company looking unprofessional, which can make it harder for you to earn the trust of a potential client. Cohesive and professional photos create brand trust and recognition. If your imagery is consistent overall (website, social media, email, logo, print outs, marketing, etc), you’re helping your customers identify your work. 
• Photography is a quick way of communicating a message to your audience without using words. Research shows that better imagery increases engagement. When you’re scrolling through Instagram, it’s the image that causes you to stop and read the caption. 
• As a bonus, I really love getting to know vendors/business owners and hear the heart of why they do what they do. I’m all about building relationships, so this is a unique opportunity to connect with other business owners, learn from them and develop a friendship with them.

As you can see, we really believe in the importance of visually representing your brand well. We would LOVE to come alongside you and your company as you brand (or rebrand) your business! To begin the process, send us an email at info@mollinerphotography.com. 

We can’t wait to tell your story!

Tell us about your company and what services you offer? BAUGhaus is an interactive floral and design company with a strong emphasis on organic and garden-style floral design. We offer services for pick-up or local delivery, weddings and social events, corporate gatherings, and hosted design workshops. Eventually, we hope to expand to a retail storefront and offer a “u-pick” bouquet bar, workshop teaching space, unique gifts and shelf space for other creatives to sell their work.

Is there a story behind the name you chose? BAUGhaus is a play on my married last name “Baugus” and the German art school, Bauhaus, whose mission, not unlike ours, was to provide a place for the arts to be celebrated and taught together. Coincidentally it translates to — BAUG [Turkish] “garden” and haus [German] ” house” –garden house.

What inspired the design for your company? My business aesthetic is pretty simple — the brand colors are black, white, earth tones and pops of green. My studio acts as a blank canvas, which is important to me because when you are conceptualizing in a distracting space, with conflicting colors and busy patterns, it can be hard to focus on the elements in front of you. Keeping the colors simple, and the space around me simple, allows the flowers to take on space and tell the story.

In three words, how would you describe your company’s style? Laid-back, organic (in design and personality), intentional

What is the most honest thing you can say about owning a creative company? It is the most vulnerable you will ever be, the most scared you will ever be, but also the most rewarded you will ever feel.

What’s your favorite part of your job? Can I say working in my pajamas? Haha, jk. I think my favorite part of my job is how different every day is. I am not the type of person who can go to an office, type in a spreadsheet until 5pm, just to wake up to do it all over it again. I need variety, I need color, I need to be able to get lost in a creative rabbit hole and get my hands dirty. I love that every arrangement I make is different from the next and that every event I design challenges me creatively. It can be exhausting, but it is so rewarding. A close second would be the mere act of creating. Since I can remember I have been making things —sidewalk drawings with chalk, elaborate school projects, baking, hand lettering, stationery, flower arrangements (of course) — you name it, I have probably dabbled in it. Being able to create things for other people (and for myself) gives me so much joy.

Describe a hurdle you’ve had to overcome as a business owner. This one is tough to admit, but I am currently embracing transparency so — in the first 6 months of operation, I had already been fired by a client, my first client. It rocked my world. I had just quit my job, I had just bought a house, I had just moved to a city where no one knew me — and the first event I had on “the books” sent me an email saying “they were going in a different direction.” I cried, a lot, and for anyone who knows me knows how rare that is. I cried for a lot of reasons — feeling like I had just blown up my families life to chase a dream that I was failing at, feeling rejected by a client (which was new to me), anger that I was being tested this way, and panic that maybe I couldn’t do this. The very next day after the client fired me, I got an email from a recent former bride that brought me to very different kinds of tears — happy. She raved about me and my work — my ability to make her wedding “perfect” (her words, not mine) — and in that moment I was reminded that it happens to everyone, and it will probably happen to me again. First business lesson: not every client is meant for me and that is OKAY.

Why is it important for companies to have a brand shoot? For SO MANY REASONS: It gives your clients (new and old) a look into your life. The people who hire you want to feel like they know you. A brand shoot gives them that insider’s look. It forces you to create a cohesive brand — to really hone in on what you want your business to look like, talk like, feel like. Choosing what photos represent your business, inadvertently forces you to make critical decisions about your brand and the way you present it (and yourself) to the world. A unique way to track your progress. Scheduling brand shoots every so often, allows you to see how your content has grown, how you have grown and how the business has grown. For content — you need social media content, you need marketing content, you need content for things I probably still don’t even know exist, and you need variety in the content. Scheduling a brand shoot with different goals (lifestyle, production, product) allows you a variation in what you can use to promote your business.

How did you prepare for this brand shoot? I had a pretty clear idea of what I wanted out of this shoot, but Ingrid was able to organize me by having me focus on key elements for the shoot (i.e. lifestyle photos, handwork, headshots). I spent a lot of time on Pinterest searching “brand lifestyle shoots” and stalking Jenna Kutcher’s Instagram picking out poses and inspiration content. I made a vision board so that I could visualize my brand (colors, aesthetic, etc.) and then I let Ingrid make magic, as she always does.

What was your favorite part of working with Ingrid to brand your company? Is everything too vague an answer? I love working with Ingrid any way I can get her. I haven’t had a relationship with a photographer like I do with Ingrid in the 6 years I have been doing this. We act as one brain when we are together. She knew exactly what I wanted out of this shoot and she focused on those elements. It honestly felt like she was as passionate about my business as I am, and took the time to get the right content for me. Also, if you have ever shot with Ingrid you know her infamous narrations of the shoot (“ooo yes girl” and “yummy”), giving you that extra little encouragement you need to feel awesome in front of the camera, yeah that helps. By the end of the shoot we were just sitting on my living room floor chatting about life, she feels like family every time she shoots for me — and her photos NEVER disappoint.