Some clients turn into friends, and Ryanne is the one I point at when somebody asks me what that actually looks like. She runs The Recruiter Mom, she found me when she needed a Denver branding photographer. And since then we have photographed together every single month for almost three years. Somewhere in the middle of all that she stopped being a client and became the person who cheers the loudest when something good happens over here. When we started she had under 100,000 followers on Instagram and she has over 457,000 now, and getting to watch that from the other side of the camera has been one of the real joys of this job. Hiring a Denver branding photographer is not supposed to come with a friendship attached, but three years of showing up for each other will do that to you.

Why Hire a Brand Photographer in Denver

When Ryanne first moved to the Denver area she told me she had been worried she would never find a photographer who understood her branding needs. And she isn’t the only one who thinks that way because it is almost exactly what people type into Google when they land somewhere new. Plenty of photographers will make you a beautiful picture and hold no opinion whatsoever about your business, and when your income depends on images converting, beautiful is where you start rather than where you finish.

Two months into working together, she wrote me a five star review. Then she stayed for three years, which told me something a review never could. The line I still come back to is the one about how she gets so many comments on how beautiful her photos look and how they fit her brand perfectly. Any Denver branding photographer can make you look good for an afternoon. Making you look like yourself, month after month, until people learn to trust you, now that is the kind of recognition that turns into money.

How Often Should You Book Brand Photos

Not everyone needs monthly photos, but if you are showing up online every day, multiple times per day, it is imperative. For almost 3 years we did one hour a month, and somewhere between 50 and 100 images every single time. That is a far smaller commitment than people picture when I say monthly brand photography, and it works precisely because we never start from zero. Nobody has to re-explain the brand, there is no awkward first twenty minutes, and by the time I walk in we both already know what we are making. Month twelve gives you considerably more out of the same sixty minutes than month one ever did.

How Many Brand Photos Do You Need

The reason a creator needs that rhythm comes down to arithmetic. Ryanne goes through images faster than any single session could ever replace them, and one shoot a year hands you a few dozen good frames before you are reposting, cropping tighter and quietly running out of road by about week six. A feed that repeats itself reads as stale even when the business behind it is thriving. I made this exact argument in a post about subscription branding photos a couple of years ago, and she is what it looks like after three years of genuinely living it.

What a Yearly Brand Photo Session Includes

Even though she moved to New Mexico, we are still working together. No, it isn’t monthly but now we create an entire YEAR of content in two days. Nobody flies a Denver branding photographer across state lines for convenience. You do it because starting over means explaining your brand to a stranger and hoping they understand it, and no business owner has time for that.

Those trips look nothing like the monthly hour. We run a twelve hour day, then a half day on top of it, something close to 39 outfit changes, and I hand over hundreds of images. That jump came from planning rather than effort, because after three years I know which setups earn their place and which looks she will genuinely use. To give you a sense of it, we shot her New Year content and her Fourth of July content inside the same September session, one straight after the other. Once you have the whole year mapped out in front of you there is no reason to come back in December for a bottle of champagne and some disco balls.

How to Plan a Year of Content

The only reason the two of us can produce a year of content in two days is that we spent three years learning her brand one hour at a time. Here is what to do next… figure out the rate at which you are using and posting images. Because the best sessions get decided before anyone picks up a camera and good direction fixes stiffness faster than confidence ever will. If you are short on ideas, steal a few of mine.

One more thing before you go. Ryanne is worth a follow whether or not you ever hire a photographer. She finds the good stuff, she is honest about what is actually worth your money, and she has built something real over at The Recruiter Mom. Go say hi.

Ready to stop rationing your photos? Book a call here.