personal branding photoshoot for a sex educator and mompreneur
Personal branding photoshoot for a mompreneur and sex educator Mary-Reid.
“I will be honest, I feel a little anxious about our photoshoot today.”
That is the text message I receive a few hours before I head out to photograph Mary-Reid’s personal branding photoshoot.
Phew. I am glad she said that. We were able to talk about it, put that anxiety to rest, and once I got to her house, we rolled up our sleeves and got to work - creating several sets for her personal branding photoshoot right there in her house.
Mary-Reid is a somatic sex educator, mom entrepreneur, who offers online and in-person classes for women, children and families. To get to know her and how she can help you, please visit her website https://www.theeroticalchemist.com
Somatic sex education is the practice of being in deep presence with clients and in body, mind and spirit. Using touch, breath, and movement clients are supported to access and inhabit their erotic selves, voice their desires, exercise choice and voice, and experience pleasure. Somatic sex education is a powerful tool for anyone, whether the goal is to rewire trauma response or simply experience new sensations. For more info on somatic sex education or find a somatic sex educator in your area, visit somaticsexeducators.com
After the initial phone consultation, to better understand Mary-Reid’s brand, I asked her to complete a personal branding photoshoot questionnaire. Answering a series of questions about her brand, colors associated with it, and what message she wanted to convey to her ideal client was a good starting point for us in preparing for her shoot.
Tip: When brainstorming ideas for visual stories when preparing for a personal branding shoot, think of all the different roles that you play on a regular basis. In Mary-Reid’s case it was:
self
mother
wife
sex educator
spiritual teacher
Then look at each relationship and think of how you could portray each of those roles in photos, there can be more than one way to do that for each role.
Based on Mary-Reid’s roles, we decided to focus her visual stories on the following areas:
Mary-Reid’s ideal clients are moms with kids of any age, most likely kids under the age of 12. Being a mom herself, Mary-Reid wanted to show this major role of her life in her photos, so one of the stories we wanted to focus on was her life as a mom - photos with husband and kids.
As someone whose goal is to teach women to get in touch with their sensual selves, discover or re-discover what feels good, and give themselves the permission to experience pleasure, to learn self-love, Mary-Reid’s next story focused on sensual photos of herself. As a main prop for these photos we used a lush red rose and she wore a cobalt blue baby doll.
The other part of her role as a sex educator involves various tools - sex toys, yoni eggs, etc. It was a really fun to photograph this segment because Mary-Reid allowed her playful and silly self shine through in these images.
Also, as an educator, someone who reads about and studies sexuality, we created some photos with books and of her journaling.
Life as a wife - a few photos with her husband, who brings out her playful, spontaneous, silly self, as well as a few sensual shots with him. As you can see, many of these photos are so alive and so real because Mary-Reid didn’t have to pose - one look at her husband and she dissolved into her natural self, just reacting to his admiring eyes, goofy jokes, and his touch. It was also thanks to her husband Tom that we had such beautiful props for our shoot - majestic big red and pink roses that he had given her for Valentine’s Day the day before.
As a goddess advocate, Mary-Reid does goddess card readings and energy work, so it was imperative for us to include some photos of her meditating, playing with her goddess deck, and with her spiritual props and symbols. We set up this shot in front of the fire place, Mary-Reid adorned the place with crystals, a gigantic pink shell, pink roses, saged the place and did a card spread. As I was trying to lie down on the floor to get a lower angle, which was quite a challenge because of my eight-months pregnant belly at the time, I started laughing and said that I would give birth right there. “It’s a good thing I’m a doula, too”, she laughed.
Just as the advice she gives to other busy moms to take the time for self-care and restoring one’s inner balance, through her photos Mary-Reid wanted to show how SHE does it. We were thinking of photos in a nearby park where she would be walking or perhaps journaling in nature. However, we did not get to that part because we spent quite a bit of time setting up the sets and then shooting inside the house , but we did take some beautiful photos outdoors right in her front yard. Those photos turned out to be very close to the images we had envisioned. We created some images of Mary-Reid hugging a tree and playing with a bouquet of red roses - the nature connection that almost every goddess yearns for. The portraits with the vibrant red roses that she had gotten for Valentine’s Day from her hubby were a perfect prop! The images with them just highlight Mary-Reid’s own juicy, vibrant, blossoming personality and stepping into her divine feminine power to unfold her business and take it to the next level. These images show how she embodies the Goddess.
Another part of the shoot that we skipped was photos of Mary-Reid in a place that she likes. She mentioned a small French cafe that she likes to visit from time to time. Mary-Reid showed me the most beautiful black leather crop jacket embroidered with red roses and I am dreaming of photographing her in a lace dress paired with that jacket sipping on a cup or glass of something.
Overall, we created a variety of images for Mary-Reid to use in her social media. And we managed to do all of that in just one location: her house and front-yard, in a matter of few hours. Mary-Reid did her homework well and before I arrived at her place, she’d had all her clothes picked out and hanging on a rack, and all her props and goddess books spread all over the dining room table.
It was lots of fun photographing Mary-Reid and as a huge fan of her work, I sincerely wish her well and hope her empire gains strength rapidly and empowers many women.
You are so much more than just your business! Research shows that we choose to do business with those people we see as similar to ourselves and those we like. Give your audience a chance to get to know you and thus better relate to you and LIKE YOU! Show them the many facets of your personality - what do you like to do in your free time, what is your family life like, how you contribute to your community - through visual story-telling of personal branding photography. Together we will select which stories to choose for your personal branding shoot, I will guide you through picking outfits (or we can employ help of a professional stylist who can help revamp your wardrobe and take your branding and confidence to a whole new level!) and together we will come up with the best locations for your photos. Then, after a few hours of photographing, you will have two, or even three, months’ worth of visual content for your social media platforms and for your website and online marketing. Contact me today for a no-obligation free consultation about what photos will be most beneficial for your business, or browse my personal branding photography gallery. I look forward to helping you elevate your business!