Inside an Interior Designer Personal Brand Shoot: Sarah Cole Spotlight | Boston Photographer

On an interior shoot, so much prep goes into making a room photo ready. On a brand shoot with an interior designer… in a home that she designed, take that prep work and make it a double, hah! When working with interior designers, I usually recommend that we keep the photoshoot for the home they designed and their brand photoshoot separate, but limitations in using someone else’s home doesn’t always allow that kind of freedom. Sarah had two days to prep, style AND shoot the home and her brand photos… I’m sweating and stressed just saying that. Prep work and communication, while time consuming, truly makes or breaks the outcome of a shoot like this.

Sarah Cole has made the art of prepping a space for a shoot down to a T. Being a visual person herself, she had the perfect vision for her “red dress” room, and using the built-ins as a main backdrop. And hello yellow shoes to perfectly compliment the yellow/blue sitting room? Showing part of her process and not JUST the pretty, finished product, was important, so we made sure to take elements from the planning stages - the measuring to get the perfect custom fit, the dozens of meetings and conversations with clients, reviewing the floor plans, down to the final touches.

YES! Your workspace is photogenic. How to easily prep your space | Boston Photographer

Ok, our workspace does not look like HGTV in day to day life, but there are some really simple things we can do to style it for photos. If you know me, you know I love shooting a portion of our brand photos in the spaces my clients actually work in. If we are talking real and authentic, this is it! We want it to look clean and “effortless,” but not perfect, so there are some really simple ways to prep your space for photos.

1. Declutter. This is the number one, number two, and number three way to prep your environment. This doesn’t mean clearing off your desk completely, we want it to look functional, but not chaotic. Remove stacks of papers, organize pens, and clean up wires. These simple things will dramatically impact the way your desk photographs.

2. Remove “heavy” or dark objects from background. Darker objects steal focus, and we want to keep distracting elements out of the background. (example here before and after?)

3. Add life! Now that we’ve removed, it’s time to add. Green plant life would be my recommendation but any sort of flowers or plant will do the trick. This can be a desk plant, bamboo stalks, or a larger standing tree-type plant. (photo example with plants in foreground and background). Plants are a styling must have for most lifestyle photoshoots, no matter what your business is.

That’s it! Just a little rearranging and your space that you didn’t think would be appropriate for photos, is now the clean, personalized space you need for your brand photos. We want it styled, not sterile.

Bonus tip: if you already have brand colors, subtly accessorize your space using those colors in your vase, plants/flowers, pen, notebook, or desk organizers. The key here is subtle, pick one or two of those items, not all of them.