Brand Photography for a Digital Designer, Artist, Teacher
Client Overview
The client is a talented digital designer and artist known for her vibrant, playful artwork that appears on fabric, greeting cards, notebook covers and mugs. In addition to creating her own art, she teaches other artists how to license their work and has built an impressive reputation through partnerships with several major companies. Her Brand is bold, colorful, and full of personality - a reflection of her creative success.
Project Goals
The goal of this session was to capture portraits and lifestyle imagery that reflected the client’s artistic spirit and professional brand. She wanted a collection of images to use for marketing, social media, and teaching materials; as well as images to use as thumb nails for her You Tube tutorials. The final photos needed to feel authentic, polished, and consistent with other professional brand photos she admired from a previous photographer. Unfortunately, I did not know before the shoot that she intended for my photos to perfectly match those of another photographer from another time…lesson learned discussed below!
Challenges
The shoot presented several environmental and aesthetic challenges:
The space was small and confined, with limited room to position both the client and camera equipment.
The walls were dark and bold, each painted a different color, which created strong color casts and reflections.
Sunlight filtered through vertical blinds, resulting in alternating bands of intense light and shadow across the subject and background.
The client wore clothing with a pattern and wanted to pose against busy patterned fabrics, introducing strong visual competition within the frame.
She requested (after the shoot) that the final images match the look and editing style of another photographer’s previous work - a challenge since each camera system, lighting setup, and editing workflow produces distinct color profiles and tonal qualities.
Creative Approach
To manage the space constraints, I repositioned furniture and photographed from creative angles that emphasized the artist’s personality without showing the tight quarters. I used natural light strategically, but unfortunately did not have enough large diffusers to block the harsh sunlight. I did have to adjust white balance to control color contamination from the walls.
Given the bold patterns and stripes, I used selective depth of field and subtle composition shifts to maintain visual harmony. Editing required extreme attention to color balance, tone, and texture to approximate the style she referenced while preserving skin tone accuracy.
Editing was a bit of nightmare, with over 48 hours dedicated to post-production. Every image was individually adjusted for color correction, exposure blending, and tone matching to create the most cohesive and professional gallery possible.
Results
The final gallery reflected her artistic personality and professionalism while maintaining natural tones, flattering light and beautiful color. However, despite my extensive editing and dedication to achieving her vision, the client expressed that she preferred to make further color adjustments herself to align more closely with the aesthetic of her previous photographer’s work.
Reflection
This project reinforced the importance of managing expectations when clients request replication of another photographer’s style. Every artist brings a unique approach, and camera systems interpret light and color differently. While technically and creatively demanding, this session pushed my skills in color theory, editing precision, and adaptive lighting. It also caused me to rewrite my pre-shoot questionnaire to add more specific questions re: expectations. I probably would not have chosen to work with someone whose expectation is that photos from other photographers be perfectly matched; it is just not possible, and I never want to disappoint or over promise what I can provide.
So, even when results diverge from a client’s subjective preferences, the process itself is valuable - a testament to artistic growth and professional integrity.
