Building up trust with clients - my work with a new client

Published on Mon Jun 7, 2021 by David J Colbran

It was great to work with a client who understands the value of good photography and is ready to improve their business marketing.

Jilly is the CEO of a luxury skincare for an ageless complexion range of products called Bo Pura Ltd and needed a range of portraits for trade and business magazines. She already had some excellent product shots from another photographer but was looking to secure media coverage and creating that all important people story behind a brand and business. So she got in touch for some natural, relaxed photographs of herself. Covid-19 restrictions at the time meant I couldn't offer a studio session, instead we headed to Sefton Park here in Liverpool early one morning for the shoot.

I have a casual, personal approach and aim to create a relaxed environment during photo shoots. My experience creates portraits that are both dynamic and flattering. I aim to bring the best out of people, even for those who normally shy away from the lens by making the experience as fun and relaxed as possible.

Also my experience allows me to shoot in a number of different styles and compositions. For example portraits for trade magazines can be used in a variety of ways by designers by creating copy-space. This as the name suggests, is literally leaving space in the image to add in text or 'copy'. This can be a headline or part of the story and gives the designer greater flexibility at the layout stage. With this in mind I look for plain, uncluttered backgrounds to use as copy-space when I am planning and shooting my images. Or perhaps throw the background out of focus.

Working closely with businesses and building up trust is what it is all about for me.

So it was fantastic to hear from Jilly again. She already had some really good images of the beauty products themselves but needed photos of the packaging of her products. In addition to the photos, she required high resolution cut outs of these images. Again all about brand recognition and creating that story, that both customers and press value. Cut outs are where in Photoshop an item - in this case beautiful boxes - are isolated and the background removed. They are then supplied in a format that allows a transparent background - either a TIFF or a PNG.

This enabled the photography to be used in a variety of different ways. As an accompaniment to her portraits - designers can overlay her products alongside the photos for magazine layouts and her team can use them very quickly to create excellent social media posts.

Below are a couple of Instagram posts, where her team layered the cut outs with other images to create some  excellent new content for her brand. Check out their Insta for more information and some great posts - https://www.instagram.com/bopuralove/

"David took some professional business photos in Sefton Park and I love the photos! I found him to be very warm and personable, which helped me feel comfortable and confident during the shoot. He provided good direction to help get some fantastic shots. And also turned around the proofs and edited the images very quickly. Subsequently I commissioned him to take some product photography, which is equally of a high standard. I can't recommend him highly enough and it was so great working with him. I look forward to working with him again on future projects." Jilly Harrison, Director, Bo Pura Ltd

If you are still unsure about the value of professional photography, please get in touch and let me convince you some more.

Author: David J Colbran