The terms headshot, portrait, and brand photo get used interchangeably all the time. They're all the same thing anyway, right?

Kind of. But not really.

Each type of image does something different. And knowing the difference can change how you are coming across in your website and marketing.

I headed out to Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania a couple times this spring to visit Messiah University for some marketing work. It had been a few years since their last campus shoot, so we had a wide variety of subjects on the shot list. Of course plenty of photos of campus and active classroom shots, as well as time to find all the quiet little nooks Messiah has to offer. The healthy mix of formal and candid shots gave the final gallery a really nice range that the University will be able to use in a mix of marketing spaces for years to come.

For companies that send teams into the field (electricians, technicians, service providers) your brand isn’t just represented online, it’s represented at someone’s front door, in their home.

Before someone invites your team in, most customers have already done a deep dive on your company. They’ve visited your website, stalked your photos, and decided whether your company and your team feels like people they can trust.

Back in the winter, I got the opportunity to run around Manayunk and capture small businesses for an article they wrote, “Power Couples of Manayunk,” how fun is that?!

A lot goes into preparing for a photoshoot — coordinating schedules, getting the right people in the room, making sure everything reflects your brand. Once the session wraps, the work moves behind the scenes. Here's what that process looks like, and how it's designed to get your images into your hands and ready to use.

The Center for Loss and Bereavement is a non-profit grief support center based in Skippack, Pennsylvania, the only organization of its kind in the greater Philadelphia region that offers professional counseling, peer support groups for all ages, and community grief programming under one roof. For over 26 years, the Center has served as a trusted resource for individuals and families navigating some of life's most difficult moments.

Hiring a photographer isn’t just about booking a date and getting a few headshots. The right photographer should help you create images that actually support your brand, strengthen your messaging, and give you content you can use across your website, social, and marketing campaigns.

D1 Dentistry recently took ownership of an existing dental office in Lansdale. As part of the transition to new ownership, the team wanted their website and marketing materials to reflect the updated leadership, environment, and patient experience, while maintaining the practice’s status as a family business, its long history, and ties to the community.

When your imagery stays frozen in a place in time, it eventually creates a disconnect between what your organization looks like today and what visitors see online.

So the question isn’t whether your website photos should be updated, it’s how often. In a perfect photography utopia we’d all have staff photographers who are on site to constantly tell the story of our work, but we all know the world is far from perfect. So what’s a reasonable minimum?