Personal Branding Sessions (Silly Faces, Outtakes & Props, Oh My!) with Scott Lawrence Ep 85

Can headshot sessions be fun? YES! Join the conversation with Scott Lawrence, a headshot photographer who's an expert in professional headshot photos, but who has a knack for capturing fun poses that can help you shape your personal brand. 

In this episode, we discuss how a headshot does more than just show your face—it shows the world who you are and what you stand for, even if you're self-employed as a coach, consultant, speaker, and/or author.

As we discuss the blend of photography and personal branding, I share how the images Scott has captured of me over the years have made a positive, memorable impact on my social media engagement. 

We go beyond the basics – discussing how comfort in front of the camera isn't just a skill but a necessity in our digitally-driven age.

Scott and I cover the nuances of presenting an authentic self, from the clothes that capture your essence to the power of personal touches that add depth to your professional portrayal. It's all about crafting a brand image that's as dynamic and unique as you are.

Wrapping up, Scott and I dive into the practical tips that can elevate your professional presence, from the perfect backdrop for video calls to the subtleties of choosing attire that won't date your image. 

If you're looking to brush up your LinkedIn profile or you're simply hungry for a different type of headshot photo session, this episode is your go-to guide. Personal Branding Sessions can be so much more and can even include Silly Faces, Outtakes & Props.

Originally aired November 28, 2023

Connect with Scott: https://www.linkedin.com/in/slawrence3/

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My name is Brenda Meller. I'm a LinkedIn coach, consultant, speaker, and author. My company is Meller Marketing and I help business professionals get a bigger slice of the LinkedIn pie.

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Transcript

Brenda Meller: 1:24

Always keeping my fingers crossed that the livestream picks up, and right now, scott, I'm watching on LinkedIn to make sure that it's picking up, and it's not picking up yet.

Brenda Meller: 1:32

So I'm going to invite our audience. If anyone is watching this live video in comments, right Okay, it looks like the live's picking up and there's about a 20 to 30 second delay. That happens with these videos, so that's why I rely on our audience. So if you're watching right now, could you do me a favor, do me a solid, if you will drop a comment below and say hi, yes, it's on. Yes, it's worse. Yes, as I always get just a little bit of panic at the beginning of this video.

Brenda Meller: 1:56

We're going to be talking and it's coming up at any rate. Good morning Scott. How are you?

Scott Lawrence: 2:00

doing today Good. Brenda, how are you?

Brenda Meller: 2:03

Good, I'm doing great. It's a great to see you. It's been a bit since we've seen each other in person but, um Delayed.

Brenda Meller: 2:09

I have the chance to chat with you today and I want to welcome our audience, whether you're watching this live or in playback, or maybe you're listening to the podcast months or now. Thank you so much for tuning in today's session we're going to be talking about personal branding sessions, silly faces, outtakes and props. Oh my, and I call this show, enthusiastically self-employed. I've designed it for individuals who are self-employed solo entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs, business owners, et cetera, and I try to bring on a variety of people from a variety of different backgrounds and I'll be honest with you, I bring on people where I want to learn from them, from their topics, or that I've done business with them and I've learned from them personally, and Scott is one of those people. By the way, I see the comments coming in.

Scott Lawrence: 2:52

Thank, you, paul, you got me I really do appreciate that.

Brenda Meller: 2:55

And, simon, we're all the way over the pond and London is watching us too. So, simon, thank you so much for watching. So back to Scott Now. Scott, you and I met originally through the Troy chamber and I discovered you were a headshot photographer. I think at the time you had moved to Detroit from was it Chicago, am I remembering correctly?

Scott Lawrence: 3:15

Okay, Yep, yep.

Brenda Meller: 3:17

And we met back at. I want to say it was like Einstein bagels. Is that sound right to you Like back, or Starbucks or something?

Scott Lawrence: 3:24

One of those. Yeah, yeah, it was definitely before COVID. Probably a dissolution Before.

Brenda Meller: 3:29

COVID in person.

Scott Lawrence: 3:30

Yeah, yeah.

Brenda Meller: 3:32

And at the time, we decided we were going to help each other. So I gave you some tips on your LinkedIn profile, you booked me for a headshot photo session, and now I come back to you about once every other year. Full disclosure the photo I have on my account right now is not Scott's. I always feel a little guilty when I use somebody else's, but I was at a conference in October and they had hired a headshot photographer for all of the attendees and they just gave us like the raw photos, without any retouching or anything, but I always encourage people, any chance you have to get a new headshot photo and update it on your account, to do it. So I think I even messaged you before and I said, scott, I'm letting you know.

Brenda Meller: 4:08

It almost felt like I was cheating on you, like I'm using someone else's photo, but it's just temporary, just. But at any rate, scott does really amazing work and I have done some personal branding sessions with him as well. So before we jump into our conversation, though, scott, why don't you tell us a bit about you and about your business? What do you do?

Scott Lawrence: 4:28

So I've been a headshot photographer for almost 10 years full time. I had a corporate background prior to that. I was actually in the insurance industry, so just a little bit of a change of gears, yeah yeah, and that actually set me up pretty well for the headshot market. I found that just having that corporate background is not something especially being a solopreneur if you haven't come from a corporate world. It's a little bit different, just a different environment. So I found that background still helps me today.

Scott Lawrence: 5:01

So I came to, I got to Detroit via Chicago where I started my business, was there for a couple of years and then we moved here and we've been here for seven years I think six, seven years. It's gone by fast and I pretty much specialize in corporate headshot photography and personal branding. So I don't do weddings. I don't do families. Only on very rare occasions I'll do a little bit of like high school senior portraits.

Scott Lawrence: 5:29

I stick to mostly studio stuff I'm not running around outside for, definitely not for headshots. And yeah, that's. I found that sticking to the niche of headshots has served me well. I like to say, or I'm starting to say now, that I was doing headshots before. They were cool. It seemed like you, look around and everybody's a headshot photographer. I've got a pretty good start on everybody and I would say that my specialty is really taking a not somebody that's not used to being on camera or being comfortable being on camera and helping them feel comfortable and relaxed in a pretty short time and getting them, getting them an image that they're proud to use.

Brenda Meller: 6:10

That's awesome and that's a really good point too, scott, because and I send people to you all the time because people come to me for LinkedIn profile optimization Like they want their profile to look more like them and reflect who they are.

Brenda Meller: 6:20

And then we look at their headshot photo and I always approach this very gingerly and I'll say to them how long has it been? Or usually I say you know, I'm not sure how long has it been. Or usually I say your headshot photo should be no more than five years old, taken from a professional headshot photographer. And I want everyone to think about this as I'm saying this. Like five years ago was 2018. It's almost 2019 at this point. That was five years ago and I think, especially with the pandemic, it's almost like we went into this time freeze.

Brenda Meller: 6:50

We don't really think about all the years that have passed and we one day look up and I'm going to show Martin's comment on the screen right now because I think this is a really good point, martin, there's a lot of people real tears, he's saying in his experience have a 20 year old profile photo and there's so many times this has happened to me, scott, and I'm sure you as well where you run into somebody at an event and you do a lot of networking.

Brenda Meller: 7:11

I know you're super active through the Troy chamber and I know that when you go up to people at the event you're like Simon and I'm not picking on you, simon from London but the name was on my mind, simon because you're like you look at their headshot photo and it's like a younger version, like a younger version of the person, and then it's a little bit jarring. So I always send them to you and I always tell people he'll make you really comfortable. He takes you through a variety of shots and poses and they will always have questions about what should I wear and things, and I'm like I know he's got a YouTube library and he's got some great resources.

Brenda Meller: 7:45

But today we're shifting gears from the traditional headshot photo and what we're going to be talking about is personal branding. Talk to us first, Scott, about what is a personal branding session and how is it different than like a headshot session.

Scott Lawrence: 7:59

So for A headshot session, I would consider that more pretty simple. In and out. I do a lot of those for work with a lot of law firms, a lot of sales teams, executives, that sort of thing. So we're in, I'll work with somebody for five or 10 minutes, and maybe a group of 20 or 30 people, or even more. Or I have people come into my studio as a kind of an ongoing basis, so if a law firm hires a new attorney, they send him over and we do a quick headshot and they're in and out and back on their way. That's a pretty good corporate model.

Scott Lawrence: 8:33

It's no frills, but I've found that most people don't want to spend an hour and a half in the studio. They want to just get in and out and get on with their day. So when you move to that personal branding space, though, is that's when you're talking about spending an hour or so in the studio and you're doing more than your LinkedIn photo. So it's at least maybe a couple of outfit changes. We're going to change up the lighting. Maybe do some different backgrounds really give you an opportunity to have some different looks, and the thing I'm trying to remind people more and more of is that you're really building a content library with your own headshots or portraits, and so that's something you need to think about, is that?

Scott Lawrence: 9:18

And then, when people go back to pick their pictures and you see this with headshots too is that people get fixated on oh, I like this pose, or I like to be standing like this, looking to the camera from this angle, or whatever, and you have to get over that hump of. It's not always about your absolute most favorite picture. It's what works for your use case. We are built as totalpreneurs, entrepreneurs. We're in the same boat. Our head, our picture, is our brand. That's who people are paying to work with, and you need different images for different purposes. So, whether that's different social media platforms, different print uses, presentations, podcasts, you name it we need different pictures, and so that's really the marketing goal. And then that takes you from one image to multiple images, and it may not be 10 or 20, but even just a handful really can set you up and you can use those for all sorts of things, as you do a great job of showing everybody.

Brenda Meller: 10:18

Yeah, and I've done a couple of these personal branding sessions and I always appreciate you'll periodically reach out to me and you'll say it's time to get another session in because you see how I'm using the photos too, and for those people that follow me online, I'm mainly on LinkedIn, but I'm also on Instagram, facebook, twitter or X, whatever they're calling it these days. I'm on threads, I'm on YouTube, so I try to blend in some of the photos that Scott has taken of me and I do these really expressive, like crazy smiling photos and sometimes the perplexed photos. And the great thing is, I think, especially even on Instagram nowadays, we're using these photos to set the mood for whatever the caption is for the photo. So it's not always corporate headshot photo, brenda. Sometimes it's more expressive, crazy Brenda, or things that fit the mood.

Brenda Meller: 11:07

And I would imagine, scott, that when you're working with people when you first did the first one with me, I was probably just a little bit nervous. Now you bring me out and I go all out and you're like, okay, let's try this and let's try and I'm pretty comfortable doing it. But talk to us about the first time you're doing a personal branding session with someone is does it feel awkward for people or is it? Are people like just really comfortable and get into them? Talk to us about that.

Scott Lawrence: 11:31

Most people are a little uncomfortable with the idea and it takes some warming up and that's part of that's part of I think what I would say is a benefit to working with a photographer is that you're they're going to, we're going to help you get over that hump of being a little camera shy. And if I would say that is that's really what you're, what you're shopping for when you're shopping for a photographer, If that's not happening, I would say, keep shopping, because with all the other technologies there's a lot that can be done elsewhere. But that interaction of just getting meeting people where they're at and helping them over the hill to build comfort is so key. And I find that once, once you get going, people start to warm up and then sometimes they're really amazed and they're really excited with the results, that like they just can't believe what we got to in the span of an hour and that's really exciting. That's probably one of the most rewarding pieces of it I want to share.

Brenda Meller: 12:28

If you don't mind, we're talking about this. I feel like sometimes we need to visualize, like, what are we talking about? And in our pre show Scott and I were talking about, I'm like can we show any photos on screen? Do you have any web page or a library? And you said, yeah, I've got under my and I think it's under. Is it under portfolio? On your website? You've got a link and it's called quirky headshots. Yep, and talk to me about, or tell us a little bit about, some of the photos that were captured here on screen. Like how do you get people like there's a woman who's doing the fingers on the eyes and tell us about, like how did you get these photos?

Brenda Meller: 13:03

are these prompted or these natural? What do you tell?

Scott Lawrence: 13:06

people to get these. So there's a lot of little prompting tricks that I use. I can't share all the secrets. You have to come, everybody has to come book a session, but it's right. But it's a lot of just a lot of one liners that get people to take that nervous energy and then you can start to use it. I have people talk about their jobs, their clients, maybe their bosses, think about their last meetings that they were at and I'm. It's funny because sometimes people come in expecting like a stand up comedy routine and I am not.

Brenda Meller: 13:37

You're pretty actually, you're very approachable, you're very down to earth. You're not like in a good way, you're not over the top like to me. You've always made me feel very comfortable, very conversational, and it's really just you and Scott working in the studio, unless you've hired somebody to do your hair and makeup or if you have an assistant working with you that day, scott, but it's pretty much you and the other person, right, and you're just having this conversation. And I remember the first couple times I did these I was like really nervous in the beginning and by the end I'm like suggesting poses and like how about we try? Oh, yeah, yeah yeah.

Scott Lawrence: 14:07

And then as you start using these and you've gone, you've seen the process, but you start to see, oh, I can use this for that and that, and it really. And the other thing people realize too is I try to encourage him, like, post, post this on Facebook or Instagram and you'll be amazed at the comments that are generated and those are always the most commented photos, especially if it's somebody that's not normally posting those kinds of images. Right? So it's really a good way to light up your light up your social media to. If you need a little boost, yeah, and then it really builds.

Scott Lawrence: 14:40

It starts to build like it's a process of building that on camera presence, because then you know, as a small business owner or solopreneur, that that comfort level of being on camera is so important.

Scott Lawrence: 14:52

Like you just have to and I would say most people in life and I'm even trying to encourage my kids in schools you've just got to be comfortable being on camera.

Scott Lawrence: 15:00

It doesn't have to be your favorite thing to do, building that comfort level, to say, okay, yeah, I can stand up here and you can take a few pictures of me, or we can do a quick video and you're good with it, you don't freak out, because I've noticed this with, sometimes, ceos or executives. They have this like media presence that they've developed and not everybody has it, but some of them do have this ability to turn it on and they do their little PR stint and then they're good and then they're back into their day job and that's a really important skill for everybody to develop and I think these little sessions are a great way to do that, because it gets out of your shell enough, stretches you and then it just helps you realize that yeah, it's not the. It doesn't. You don't have to be nervous about it and do it. Everybody can do it. It's a place you can get to.

Brenda Meller: 15:49

And you work with a variety of people.

Brenda Meller: 15:50

You were just talking about CEOs and my show is really targeted more towards people who are self-employed and I want to remind everybody, when you're self-employed you can make your own rules. And I'm speaking to the people who are just leaving corporate because I remember those days when I was just leaving corporate and I would go out to networking events, I would wear my suits, my corporate suits, because that was my apparel, my attire, when I did headshot photo sessions. I did one, I think not too long after I really got into being self-employed and I did one pretty early on with you. But I changed my attire and I went more from suits to like colorful blouses in different fun type of apparel. And then I realized I can do anything I want.

Brenda Meller: 16:27

I can make a logo that is magenta pink. I don't have to use a standard corporate blue. And when you do photos of yourself on social media they don't always have to be just your stiff corporate headshot photos. And I think when you're self-employed you can give yourself that freedom, whereas if you're in a corporate role and you're one of the leadership team members part of a company, you have to follow the personality of the company. Would you agree with that, scott?

Scott Lawrence: 16:51

Yes, and I would mention that we're all CEOs of our own company, so they're still that parallel. But yeah, I think you do have a lot more freedom to do pretty much whatever you want, and everybody's got their comfort level, and it takes a while to sometimes warm up if you are coming from that corporate background where there are a lot of rules to follow and you're always thinking about what you should or shouldn't do or what is or isn't going to be approved. I've got a lot of corporate people that have tattoos on their arms in there. That's always concerned about that, and so, yeah, you get to that point. Last, my train of thought there when I was saying that's okay.

Brenda Meller: 17:23

And I think it's just when you're a corporate employee. I think you have to fit the mold of what the leadership team looks like you can be bold and step outside of it a bit.

Brenda Meller: 17:31

But I guess for those people who are self-employed, we can do more of these outtakes, these personality shots. I've even got a collection of like coffee mugs and I think when I brought some of them out to you and I've had them, me holding the coffee mugs, I've got my girl boss mug in there and I've got my pie tin. Actually, now that I mentioned it, I got to hold up copy my book. I brought my pie tin with me for the photo shoot. You have to pick up a copy of social media pie to see that photo in action there, but giving ourselves permission.

Brenda Meller: 17:59

So I want to speak to those people out that are listening either live or playback or in the podcast that are just getting started. I want to let you know you can give yourself permission to have fun in your photos and show some of your personality, whether you want to be a little bit more serious and quirky or have some personality and some fun.

Scott Lawrence: 18:17

And I also think that'll help build your. I think it'll help you find the personality of your business and almost your marketing vibe, for lack of a better word. Yeah, because when you let go to an extent, it starts to guide how you structure your social profiles, what you post, what you show. And then also it's great, for I've been doing a lot of self-portraits of myself for my YouTube channel.

Brenda Meller: 18:41

Yeah.

Scott Lawrence: 18:42

And those are. It's just like what you're doing and you just crank them out and it's just every expression you can think of, and then and the point for the YouTube channel.

Brenda Meller: 18:50

It's not just the video, it's the still photo that sits on the cover image of the YouTube. So, as you're sharing that and you do a really great job with this too, scott you will send out your YouTube video clips and an email newsletter and then you'll also merchandise them on social. But it's so important to have a compelling, interesting still photo for the thumbnail, cause, as people are coming up, as your videos are coming up in search results, people are gonna click on the video that looks interesting and compelling and people pay attention to those fun, expressive photos, or even just the serious but posed photos.

Scott Lawrence: 19:21

Yeah, and there's a whole science behind the YouTube thumbnail development. I don't get that far into it, but, yeah, people spend a lot of time on that. Yeah, and it doesn't take You're pretty good on.

Brenda Meller: 19:32

YouTube, though, you're followed in your footsteps, and I admire the work that you're doing, and I've seen your presence growing and I've watched your videos evolve too. I think you're really doing a nice job. So little plug for Scott. I'll drop his YouTube link into the chat if you guys want to see that. What I'd like to do now, though, scott, is change gears, and we're gonna bring our audience into the conversation, so I'll invite our audience. If you're watching this live, whether you're on YouTube, linkedin or Facebook, if you drop a comment, I can bring your comments up on screen, and I do see a few comments that have come in here, and here's one from Sue Griffey. Sue is in, I believe, the Washington DC area, scott, but she says she's learned a lot. She's got a stack of faces and poses and tools that she uses in mentoring and, of course, lots of poses with pom poms, and that's one of her props she's got. She's a mentor with pom poms, and she uses that.

Brenda Meller: 20:22

I would imagine. Do you work with people like Sue as well, who are executive coaches, or people Like I'm a little bit more out there, I'm a marketer, I'm a bit more I don't wanna say crazy with some of the poses I do, but I think you can be corporate and still be expressive with your personal branding sessions. Do you agree with that?

Scott Lawrence: 20:41

Yeah, and you can still have. Excuse me, you can still have the hold on.

Brenda Meller: 20:47

That's okay, and while we're waiting for that, I was like a frog in the morning. I hope you'll comment, hey. Andrew hey superstar Andrews watching us today too.

Scott Lawrence: 20:56

But yeah, you can bring your personality to the corporate images as well, and it's there's no reason you can't. Yeah, I'd say, the more the merrier.

Brenda Meller: 21:04

Yeah, absolutely. Dan was commenting on my lighting, which I was adjusting just before the show and I even told Scott this. I'm like, whenever I feel like I'm with somebody who's an expert in cameras and videos and lighting and Scott's a core service as photography, but you also do video. So I, when I came on camera today, I was like, oh, I gotta make sure I look good because I don't want Scott to be disappointed in my lighting, or yeah, it's funny, the one thing I never got.

Scott Lawrence: 21:29

I never really dialed in a zoom setup because after the pandemic or once I could start doing sessions again. I got back in and I was actually quite busy so I didn't have time to really develop a video setup. But I have my little YouTube setup and that really is all about using a fancy lens to get a nice soft background that blurs all my clutter out in the background and a little bit of lighting, but yeah, it's, but it works.

Brenda Meller: 21:53

And Dan says he loves your studio, scott, he needs to get some Dan's saying he needs to get some soft lights in the background and I see that what you have behind you that's I think I've actually taken photos against that that blank wall that's behind you. If I'm not mistaken, that's like the back windows are facing the back parking lot by you, and that's the wall that we do the photos against right behind you.

Scott Lawrence: 22:12

Yeah, the wall behind the mirror there. That's where we do a lot of the stuff and, yeah, people are sometimes surprised that you can do a lot with a wall and these days where you I know you do a lot of this in Canva, where you're cutting your background out anyway, so that's even better. Just to have a simple neutral background, it's like during a green screen, but technically sometimes it's a little easier because you don't have to worry about the green screen reflections. So, yeah, the wall. So don't underestimate a nice, simple, neutral colored wall, because you can do a lot with it.

Brenda Meller: 22:41

And it's funny that you mentioned that, because sometimes when I refer clients over to you to get a new headshot, it's because they have the really dated looking photos and I try to gently remind them that technology changes and even styles of backgrounds change, and it's usually the people that I refer over to you, scott, have the older backgrounds, which are either the blue with like white that looks like clouds in the background, or the tan darker tones and the tan lighter tones, and it's just, it's dated and it's, and I love that you use the the lighter background and you've even done techniques I've done these shoots with you as well where you have the lighting kit that you're reflecting on the wall so you can make a colored background on that white, lighter, colored wall, right.

Scott Lawrence: 23:25

Yeah, the nice thing about like a plain white wall is you can technically make it dark or light. You can do all sorts of things with it. That's why I do have some backdrops on the other side of the wall here. But people do they ask a lot about backgrounds. It's maybe not as much anymore, but it used to be. People were more concerned. I felt like they're more concerned about the background, and that's. The background is relevant. But for a headshot or portrait or most personal branding related type images, it's about you. The background should not overpower anything. If it does, it's just too much because it's taking the attention off you. Then you're not. It's not a personal branding image.

Brenda Meller: 24:03

That's a good point, and you've even reminded me too, like I remember our some of our earlier headshot sessions, and I think this was when your studio was in Rochester and I brought out a couple different outfits and I had jewelry, I had statement necklaces and then I was gonna wear as a part of my shoot and you were very diplomatic about it. But you're like, why don't we try a few without?

Brenda Meller: 24:22

yeah and I'm glad that you did, because then the the focal point would have been on the necklace, the statement necklace, and not on me and my face and and we were able to do a lot with those photos that I don't even think about it. I think I even that day I brought out I had stopped by Starbucks in the morning and I had my Starbucks and you even get a couple of photos of me drinking my Starbucks, which I still use to this day.

Scott Lawrence: 24:44

Yep, it's, it's a personality element. Yeah, the props, and so the jewelry is one that's an easy way to date an image I find, almost more so than clothing or background I can, and it just is distracting by design. And then the props are interesting. I touched on that and that's, I think, worth mentioning for personal branding type uses is that functionally they serve a nice little benefit and that it gives you something to do with your hands, because yeah, it's awkward, no, but everybody asks what do I do with my hands?

Scott Lawrence: 25:15

and that's for anything. That's even a like a chest up picture that people are still asking what do I do with my hands? And if you have a phone or a mug, or I've had doctors bring stethoscopes, any little prop that you use day to day is nice because you're used to holding it and you have, you have a way of manipulating with your hands. So you're not. It gives you something to do but you're not thinking about it and it really adds a lot to the session.

Brenda Meller: 25:42

Yeah, it almost reminds me of for people who are parents. You'll relate to this. If you're a parent, you know how to hold a baby. If you've never been a parent and you're visiting your niece or your nephew or your brothers and they hand you the baby, you're like how do I, where do I hold, how do I hold it's head?

Brenda Meller: 25:56

and you'd want to, but I'm going to talk to those folks like me who are working with social media. You've got your hand in your phone a lot and I've done this couple of these in your sessions where I'm like you're like hold your phone in front of you and look at it and point at it. And or grab. I don't have a call. Let me see if I do have a coffee mug. Grab your coffee mug, Bring one of your favorite.

Brenda Meller: 26:16

This is from Amy Porterfield's program, by the way. Grab a coffee mug and, even if there's nothing in it, pretend like you're sipping a cup of coffee or hold it in front of your. You've done a really great job of that. But I love that you touch on using the props that you use as a part of your business, and you talked about doctors bringing stethoscopes and, I would think, people who are self employed. You probably do the same thing that you did with me and I don't want to give too much away.

Brenda Meller: 26:39

But when we were talking about booking our personal branding session, you asked me some questions how I'm going to use it, what are the types of props that I think I might bring no surprise to anybody who knows me. I said maybe I'll bring some pie, but I don't know because I don't know how food photographs. And I think I said no, I don't want to do that. And you're just like, yeah, let's not do real food on camera. Yeah, let's do inanimate objects instead, but I think a good photographer like Scott can help to draw that out of you. So if you're thinking about doing one of these personal branding sessions, highly recommend it, and I think what you had mentioned, scott too, is that you can incorporate some headshot photos as a part of the session as well. So we can do, we can act both of this out, right.

Scott Lawrence: 27:20

Yeah. So it's real, it's real easy to do. We do some headshots and then we branch off and I find the headshots are a good warm up to, gets people a little more comfortable, starts to calm the nerves a little bit and people realize, oh, I can do this. And then we start to branch out. We'll try some different outfits and then we'll try different lighting setups and start to do whether that maybe they're three quarter or sometimes I'll do full length image. It's funny, people think they want full length sometimes but then they realize it's harder to do than people realize.

Scott Lawrence: 27:54

So we will try to air towards a three quarter and I find for most social media uses you don't generally need to show your feet because it's just the format doesn't work, so you don't have to worry about your shoes. That's a good point. You see what I tell people. Yeah, you do want to worry about your pants, though I've had some challenges without. Recently I did a little AI test where I had Photoshop try to generate some pants on a client that was supposed to have a suit head to toe and he only had his shirt and jacket. So I wanted to see if that was going to work, as if we could save the save the project. So I said let's take a shot and we'll see what we can do and see if I can add pants. And it did not go well, we'll put our pants in later.

Brenda Meller: 28:38

Yes, it's quite work.

Scott Lawrence: 28:41

Yes, yes, and you'd be surprised how often it happens, because you get people are still on the zoom mentality, where you're doing and it's just chest up, and so they, and then they think to oh, it's just a headshot, which yeah, but depending on your, especially for a bigger company, you may need different specced images and sometimes and I would say this applies to everybody, regardless of what yeah, if you're where the pants, where the bottom half pants.

Scott Lawrence: 29:10

Yeah, and it's good to shoot with a little extra room because you can always crop in. It's a little harder to make space times. You can get lucky with AI there. But again, it's always, always better to show the pants and then we can crop in, because that gives you a lot more flexibility and layout for all sorts of social uses.

Brenda Meller: 29:29

The good thing is you're thinking about these things so that we don't have to, and I'm sure you're bringing all this in because you know what happens after the photo session. When people reach back out to you, they say do you have an image that has more background? Do you have a wider image, a taller image? You have one that's showing just a little bit more of me, and you're like we didn't get that because you were wearing shorts and not your suit dress or your suit skirt that day. Yeah, I want to be respectful of your time, scott. I know you said you've got a client coming in for a session in a little bit. Scott's a busy guy, so what I want to do is I want to show your LinkedIn. You are all up on screen right now and are you open to connecting with people on LinkedIn, scott?

Scott Lawrence: 30:07

I am. I am not super active, as Brenda would probably know from LinkedIn. Don't tell people that. So I am active on LinkedIn.

Brenda Meller: 30:15

You're as active as you can be because you have a thriving, busy business.

Scott Lawrence: 30:19

Yes, that's a good way to say it. I am juggling a lot of social media platforms and I make sure I post video updates and that sort of thing, but I would like to follow more especially. In the last couple of years I've made some great relationships with clients and just keeping better tabs on them. That would be, I think, beneficial. But yeah, there's my profile. It's pretty solid, it's holding up. I think I do need to update that headshot because I have a lot of more recent ones that it's probably telling everyone there.

Brenda Meller: 30:46

Isn't it funny. It's like the what did they say? The cobbler making the children's shoes.

Scott Lawrence: 30:50

I can't think of anything else here, but it's the same thing.

Brenda Meller: 30:52

It's even for me. From time to time I'll do the once over on my LinkedIn profile and I realize I have something that I don't do anymore. Like I have a service listed into my about statement, but I try to refresh and mine up periodically. And as a photographer, you're always behind the camera, you're not in front of the camera. You know getting your headshot photo captured.

Brenda Meller: 31:10

But I want to encourage you, if you're watching this, whether you're watching live playback or the podcast if you invite Scott to connect, just mention that you heard him on the video with Brenda about the personal branding sessions and he I know he'll be happy to accept your invitation. And then, Scott also, I'm going to go back to your website here and remind us if people are interested in doing business with you Now. Today we were talking about personal branding, but I know that you have a variety of different offerings and services available, so remind us, if you could, what are the things that you do as a photographer? What are the services that you offer?

Scott Lawrence: 31:43

So the primary services are really individual studio headshots so you can make appointments through my website. Said, we're both in Detroit, I'm in Troy specifically, so you can make an appointment through the website. And then I also work on location for organizations. So if somebody that's got an organization of whether it's half a dozen to 100 people or more, even that's something we can do as well. I also do event headshots too.

Scott Lawrence: 32:12

So if you're going to a conference again like what you talked about, where it's a conference, trade show, that sort of thing and oftentimes a lot of headshot photographers on site, that's a challenging environment to work in and the expectations are high. But it's pretty tricky. But I will say I'm pretty good at it. So I'm trying to do a little bit more. So that's a great way, even if it could be a client appreciation type of thing. There's also a lot of marketing, branding type of things you can do within those to get sponsors and that sort of thing. And then I do a little bit of, like I said, a little bit of high school portraiture seniors. I do some sports team stuff too as well. That's my hobby, if you will, my daughter's on a couple of dance teams, and so I've been doing some team banners.

Brenda Meller: 32:58

You get roped in for that because you're the dad of the dancing kid. It's a lot of fun.

Scott Lawrence: 33:03

It's a lot of fun. So yeah, those are the main things, and I would say, if you have questions, don't hesitate to reach out.

Brenda Meller: 33:12

And just a great selection. I love that you've got this gallery on your homepage. For those people that are watching on video right now you can see these photos that are rotating through and some people are against just the clean white wall. Other people and I love there was a woman a little while ago. I don't know if she'll come back up. She's wearing a purple blouse and you've got purple light and it just looks amazing. Like the lighting and the coloring and everything look really great. But you do such a nice job with your photography and you do a broad selection of individuals, not just personal branding, but also head chat photos. So if you're interested in learning more, go to ScottLorencePhotocom. We'll put the link in the show notes for those of you who might be interested in that. And Scott, as we start to wrap up our conversation today, I just want to give you any final comments for us, for those people that are thinking about personal branding sessions for themselves.

Scott Lawrence: 33:57

I would say it's a great experience, regardless of your profession. It looks like we had a comment about personal branding for individuals who are not business.

Brenda Meller: 34:05

I saw that one coming in. I don't know if you want to end with maybe answering Doris's question Doris thanks for watching.

Scott Lawrence: 34:10

Yeah, thanks, doris. I think that's so. I think it's a great experience. I think and this goes back to just the the classics of photography is it's a good experience just to be photographed and it's a good.

Scott Lawrence: 34:21

I think it's a good thing to exist in pictures that are a little bit beyond a cell phone. Even though those are great pictures and they still stand on their own, it's a, it's just an experience that is hard to replicate through a phone, and that process, as we talked about, can start to build a camera presence which can help you in a lot of other things and having good images of yourself. There's no reason that that's a good reason in a of itself. So I would say don't be shy or embarrassed about wanting to get some good pictures of yourself Goes a long way. And then as your, as your branching out for business, for your business if you are, if you are a business owner, I would definitely encourage you to try, try lightening it up a little bit. I think you'll be surprised at how how much personality you can bring to your images, and then I think that's helps set the stage for some of your marketing initiatives going forward.

Scott Lawrence: 35:12

And then do check out my definitely check out the YouTube channel. I know you you mentioned that before, but I have a lot of good tips there as well for people that my clients love this. I send them some video recommendations when they book a session. There are a lot of tips on just how to basically how to be a model for non models is the way I would put it. Yeah, it helps you think about what to wear, what not to wear. I've even got a video on how to smile, so those tips are pretty valuable regardless of where you are, where you are in your career. Again, it's just a lot of good camera presence tips, yeah.

Brenda Meller: 35:47

Absolutely. And just to add on to the question from Doris was how can you say a thing or two about personal branding for individuals who are not business owners or entrepreneur? Doris, I just want to give a personal plug out to all of you out there who are employees of companies thinking about personal branding and you might say I don't really have a personal brand because I'm an employee of a company. Yes, you do, and I think it's so important that we're always thinking about Growing and managing our personal brands online, because you never know where the future will lead and sometimes we can create a presence for our self that could open doors to other opportunities and that might be other employment opportunities and other organizations that are maybe a better fit.

Brenda Meller: 36:27

Or if, for whatever reason, your employment ends with another company, without your previous company, it keeps you visible on the platform and, honestly, I never was planning to be self employed, but I had built up such a strong personal brain for myself that I was able to pivot into it quickly. And then I work with scott to help to polish off my looks online. So just a little bit of a plug for that. So, scott, this has been such a delight chatting with you today we were supposed to do my personal branding session. Like a week and a half going to cancel because I had some client engagements come up.

Brenda Meller: 36:57

So I think we're gonna be reaching out in january and getting that scheduled, but I'm really looking forward to it and I just want to thank you again for being on today, scott thanks again for having me.

Brenda Meller: 37:06

I'll spend a pleasure. Alright, guys, and for those of you are watching, if you enjoyed watching the video, we would love it if you could drop a comment below. Scott and I are self employed, so we do not get performance reviews anymore, so our performance reviews come in form of the comments from you. So if you enjoyed the tips that you got from us today, if you're following scott, if you work with scott, we'd love to hear from you in the comments and then, as soon as this video is done playing on linkedin, if you're watching it here, there'll be a little share icon at the bottom. If you could go ahead and click on share and share it as a linkedin post today. When you do so, tag scott and myself, use the at sign to tag us in on that.

Brenda Meller: 37:45

When you do, maybe, share something that you learn or tell people why they should watch the video, scott and I will be sure to comment back to you, and this is a really great technique. By the way, if you haven't posted on linkedin in a while, it may be not at all yet, this month, this year even, and we're getting into december. It's a really great technique. With that said, we look forward to seeing you all on linkedin and scott. I'm hoping to make it out to a troy chamber event soon to see you in person, and then we'll do that photo session sometime in the new year I'm looking forward to it All right, guys.

Brenda Meller: 38:14

stay safe and stay healthy.