A Branding Session Designed for Her New Website
When you’re building a new website, the words matter. The layout matters. The colors, fonts and overall design matter.
But the photography? That can completely change how the finished site feels.
That was especially true for my branding session with Valerie Day of Living A Vocal Life, a Bellingham-based musician, educator and creative explorer who helps singers create a sustainable and fulfilling life in music.
Valerie was creating a new website for Living A Vocal Life, and she wanted the photography to feel like a natural extension of the brand she had already created.
Her brand words were: Creative. Empowering. Fun. Thoughtful. Transformational.
Those words became our starting point for the session.
Creating a Visual Brand That Feels Like Valerie
One of my favorite parts of branding photography is getting to see how someone’s personality and business come together visually.
For Valerie, we didn’t need to create a traditional corporate headshot session. Her work is personal, creative and deeply connected to her own experience as a musician and educator.
Her office was already full of color and personality, with the room decorated in her brand colors. Instead of fighting that environment or trying to make everything look overly polished, we used it as part of the visual story.
We started by photographing the space itself, focusing on the details and objects that help tell Valerie’s story.
Then we moved into more polished portraits of Valerie at her desk, incorporating things that made sense for her work, including headphones and other meaningful desk details.
From there, we shifted into a more relaxed look on the couch, incorporating a journal, iPad, coffee and other elements that reflected the way she actually works and spends time thinking, creating and teaching.
The goal wasn’t simply to create a collection of nice portraits.
It was to create a library of images Valerie could actually use throughout her new website and marketing.
Why Photography Matters So Much on a New Website
This is one of the biggest reasons I love branding photography.
When you’re launching or redesigning a website, it’s easy to focus so much on the copy, navigation and design that photography becomes an afterthought.
But your images are often some of the first things people notice.
For a business like Living A Vocal Life, the photography needs to communicate who Valerie is and what someone can expect from working with her. Her website is designed to help singers find practical guidance, confidence and a sustainable path in music, drawing on her decades of experience as a performer and educator.
The right photography helps bridge the gap between what a business says and what it feels like.
A professional portrait tells someone who you’re looking at.
A thoughtfully photographed environment tells them something about how you work.
Details and lifestyle images give them a sense of your personality.
And a collection of all three creates a visual story that can carry throughout an entire website.
From Branding Strategy to Website Images
One of the things I love about working on branding sessions is that we’re not just showing up and taking a bunch of headshots.
We’re thinking about where the images are going to live and what they’re going to do.
For Valerie’s session, that meant creating a variety of horizontal and vertical images, tighter portraits, environmental photographs and detail shots that could work across different sections of her website.
That gives a web designer more flexibility and gives the business owner a much more useful collection of images.
Instead of trying to make one photo work everywhere, you have images that can be used for an About page, course pages, blog posts, podcast content, social media, email marketing and more.
And when you look at the finished Living A Vocal Life website, you can see why that variety matters. The site has multiple sections designed to help singers listen, read, explore and learn, so having a strong collection of photography gives the visual identity room to breathe throughout the site.
Creating Images That Feel Like You
For me, the best branding photography doesn’t feel like you’re putting on a costume for your business.
It should feel like you on a really good day.
For Valerie, that meant creating images that felt thoughtful and polished without losing the creative, warm and approachable personality behind Living A Vocal Life.
And I think that’s what makes a branding session so valuable.
You’re not just getting new headshots.
You’re creating a visual toolkit for your business.
Images that can help someone understand who you are, what you do and what it might feel like to work with you before they ever send an inquiry.
And when you’re building a new website, that’s pretty powerful.
Your website tells people what you do.
Your photography helps them feel who you are.
I loved getting to create these images for Valerie and Living A Vocal Life, and even more so, seeing them become part of the new website and visual identity she created for her next chapter.
If you’re planning a new website, launching a business or realizing that your current photos no longer reflect the business you’ve grown into, branding photography can be one of the best places to start. Get in touch and let’s create something special for your business!
