“Can’t I Just Use My Phone?”
And other things business owners say when they don't think they need a photographer.
Let's get one thing out of the way first: yes, your phone takes very good photos.
I use mine all the time.
For Instagram Stories, behind-the-scenes moments, a quick snap of something I'm working on or when I need a photo and there's nobody around to take one. Modern phones are genuinely impressive, and I'm certainly not going to tell you that every photograph your business needs has to be taken by a professional photographer.
But there comes a point where the photographs you're using to represent your business need to do a little more.
Because business photography isn't just about having nice pictures of yourself. It's about having the right visual assets to communicate what you do, build trust with potential clients and make your marketing easier.
And that's a slightly different conversation.
Your phone isn't the problem
I think the conversation around professional photography sometimes gets unnecessarily black and white. Either you need a photographer for everything, or you should be able to do everything yourself with your phone.
Neither is particularly true.
Your phone is brilliant for capturing the everyday stuff that makes your business feel human. In fact, some of that content is probably more useful on social media than a perfectly polished professional photograph.
The question is really where the photograph is going and what it needs to do.
If you're taking a quick photo for an Instagram Story, go for it. If you've just finished a project and want to document it, absolutely. If you're sharing something spontaneous with your audience, please don't wait for a photographer to turn up.
But if you're creating photographs for your website, launching a new service, updating your Google Business Profile or building a visual library that you're going to use across your marketing for the next six months, it's worth thinking about the bigger picture.
Because there's a difference between taking a photograph and creating an image that has a purpose.
“My friend has a really good camera…”
They might.
And they might even be a very good photographer.
But having an expensive camera isn't really the thing you're paying for when you hire a professional business or brand photographer.
If all I brought to your shoot was a camera, you could probably just buy one.
The camera is one part of it.
You're also paying for years of experience understanding light, composition, posing, direction and how to photograph a real human being without making them feel like they're auditioning for a shampoo commercial.
But there's another part of the job that I think gets overlooked: understanding the business behind the photographs.
A good business photographer should be looking beyond the individual image.
Where are you currently using photographs on your website? Is there a strong image for your homepage? Do you have anything that actually shows what you do? Do you have enough variety to create content without posting the same headshot every second Tuesday?
Maybe you've got loads of beautiful portraits but nothing that tells people what working with you actually looks like. Maybe your website has a great About page but you're relying on stock photography everywhere else. Or maybe your business has changed significantly since your last photoshoot, but your images haven't caught up.
These are the gaps you don't necessarily see when you're looking at your own business every day.
And identifying those gaps is part of the value of working with someone who understands both photography and business.
“Can't I just use AI?”
Well… you can.
AI is getting ridiculously good, and there are definitely situations where it can be useful. I'm not interested in pretending it doesn't exist or that photographers somehow have a magical force field around us that makes AI irrelevant.
But there is a difference between creating an image that looks like you and creating photographs of you, your business and your actual world.
Your clients aren't just looking at whether you have a nice face and a good website. They're getting a feel for who they're going to be working with. They want to see the person behind the business, the environment you work in, the things you create and the way you actually show up.
There is something reassuring about seeing a real person in their real business.
And personally, I'm not sure I want my potential clients meeting my AI-generated alter ego before they meet me.
“But I don't need that many photos.”
Good. Neither do I.
This is where I think the photography industry can sometimes get a little obsessed with numbers. Fifty images. One hundred images. Two hundred images. More must mean better value, right?
Not necessarily.
If I give you 100 photographs and you only ever use five of them, the other 95 aren't particularly useful to your business.
I'd much rather understand what you actually need and create a collection of images that gives you options across your website, social media, email marketing, Google Business Profile, sales pages and whatever else you're currently using to market your business.
Because the value isn't really in the number of files you receive.
The value is in what those photographs allow you to do.
Maybe your shoot gives you the images you need to finally update your website properly. Maybe you've got enough content to stop scrambling for something to post every week. Maybe you have photographs for your next launch, a new service or a sales page you've been putting off.
Those are business outcomes.
The photographs are simply the tool that helps you get there.
So what photographs does your business actually need?
That's going to depend entirely on your business.
A coach or consultant might need a strong collection of portraits, images of them working with clients and photographs that communicate their personality and expertise. Sometimes they just need a killer headshot.
A creative business might need a mixture of portraits, behind-the-scenes images, workspace photographs and details of the work itself.
A service-based business might need photographs that show the person behind the business, the process and what the client experience looks like.
And most businesses will benefit from having a mixture of close-up and wider images, horizontal and vertical photographs, portraits and photographs where you're actually doing something.
You do not need to copy somebody else's branding shoot just because you liked it on Instagram.
You need photographs that make sense for your business.
If you're looking for a business photographer in Wollongong, the Illawarra or the South Coast, that's something I'd encourage you to ask before you even start comparing packages: what does my business actually need?
Not, “How many images do I get?”
This is where the value of a brand photographer comes in
When you hire a professional business or brand photographer, you're not simply paying someone to take photographs.
You're bringing in someone who can look at your business from the outside and help you see what you might be missing.
Someone who can think about the photographs before they're taken, rather than simply creating a gallery and leaving you to figure out what to do with it (I help with that part too.)
Someone who understands that the photograph on your homepage has a different job from the one you're going to use in an Instagram Story. Someone who knows you need enough variety to keep your marketing fresh, but doesn't believe you need hundreds of photographs just for the sake of it.
And yes, you're also paying someone who knows how to use a camera really well.
But the camera isn't the value.
The thinking behind it is.
That's why I don't want to create a bunch of pretty photographs that you never use. I want to create images that become part of your business — images that support your website, your marketing, your content and whatever you're building next.
Because you're not really investing in a pile of photographs.
You're investing in what those photographs can do for your business.
Your business photography should make things easier
The best business photography doesn't just give you a nice gallery of images to look through.
It gives you options.
It gives you a strong image for your website homepage, a collection of photographs for your About page, content you can use across social media, images for your email marketing and photographs you can reach for when you need to promote something new.
It should make showing up for your business easier, not give you another folder of files to manage.
That's ultimately what I think professional photography should do.
Not create more stuff for you to figure out.
Create useful visual assets that help your business communicate, market itself and grow.
And that's a very different thing from simply taking a few nice photos.
Let's get one thing out of the way first: yes, your phone takes very good photos. But there comes a point where the photographs you're using to represent your business need to do a little more.