Shruthi Venkatasubramanian

"When a client froze up during 'speaker poses,' we scrapped the pose list and started talking instead. Here's what actually happens during a Studio S personal branding session — and what it takes to get real images instead of performed ones."

If you're a therapist building a private practice, your photo is doing something unusual. It isn't establishing authority the way a CFO's headshot does. It's answering a much quieter question a prospective client is asking before they ever pick up the phone: Could I tell this person the truth? That's a strange thing to ask a photograph to do. But it's the actual job, and it's why generic professional photography often falls flat for this profession. Where Your Photos Actually Go Most...

If your personal branding photos are just a headshot, you're missing four other categories your brand actually needs to look like itself — on your website, on LinkedIn, in a media kit, anywhere someone forms an opinion of you before they've met you. Here's the full list, and what each one is actually for. 1. Headshots The foundation, not the whole story. A strong headshot answers one question — what do you look like when you're doing your job well — but it can't answer every question a brand...