Headshots vs Personal Branding Photography — Which One Do You Actually Need? Or, quite possibly, both.
If you’ve been looking into professional photography for your business and found yourself slightly confused by the terminology, you’re not alone. Headshots and personal branding images are often mentioned in the same breath, but they serve very different purposes — and knowing the difference could save you from investing in the wrong thing.
Let’s start with headshots
A headshot does exactly what it says. It’s a clean, professional portrait — typically head and shoulders — that tells the world you mean business. Think LinkedIn profiles, company websites, speaker bios and business cards. Simple, polished and instantly credible.
What a headshot isn’t, is the whole story. It’s a first impression, not an introduction. And for many business owners, that’s where it starts to feel limiting.
Headshots
Headshots are straightforward & classic professional portraits, offering a polished and reliable way to portray yourself on LinkedIn, company websites, and business cards. Their simple focus on your face and shoulders conveys professionalism and credibility, usually within a traditional studio setting and clean background further solidifying that impression.
Several of these are headshots taken on location, part of a wider branding shoot, giving clients the flexibility of having both sets of images as part of their image bank. In some instances, the background can be removed either in Photoshop or a package like Canva, depending on how you want to use it.
However, headshots alone might not do justice to your personality or brand story. Add in your ‘secret sauce’ with a custom brand shoot, which allows you to go beyond and tell a much richer story of who you are, who you serve and how.
Personal Branding
Personal branding photos are all about showing off the real you – your quirks, your style, your whole vibe.
Branding images from one of the clients above to really highlight the difference between headshots & personal branding images.
It’s quite simply your brand story through pictures, and you can use them everywhere – social media, your website, your business card or to support a launch of a new product or service.
Branding photography has style, personality, and it helps you market your brand with such ease, as you have a bank of images that talks about every key element of your business.
…so, where do you start?
Take some time to understand where you “promote” yourself.
You may only need a handful of images for online profiles and professional directories, then a headshot/ brand portrait session is just fine for you. However if you are active on social media or have a website or are launching a new service or product, then a personal branding session will be ideal for you.
A headshot – or brand portrait session as I like to call them – is relatively quick and easy, requiring you to turn up as your best self and ready to go.
Creating a series of cohesive images that tell your brand’s story is a comprehensive process and time is taken to plan these well.
Every shoot is personalised in every aspect to ensure it accurately reflects you & your brand, considering everything from location and clothing to incorporating your brand colours and props. Every detail is carefully planned to ensure you get the most out of your shoot and you walk away with compelling visuals that meet your marketing goals.
My Brand Portrait sessions allow you to create headshots as well as lifestyle images that give you the best of both worlds. We get that all important headshot as well as allowing you to show some personality in your other images.
I hope you’ve found this useful…if you’re thinking about it, then by all means get in touch for my Personal Branding Welcome Guide and then lets chat.
