by Yasmin Bruce | May 27, 2025 | Featured, Headshots, Personal Branding
For any business, a polished brand image begins with the people behind it. Professional team headshots help present your team as unified, confident, and approachable. Whether you have a small business, real estate company, medical practice, or larger corporate group, cohesive professional team headshots enhance the way that your brand is seen.
Why Professional Team Headshots Matter
Brand perception is so important because it determines how your business is thought about within your industry and in your community. Consistency in your corporate team headshots communicates that you’re serious about what you do, and encourages others to take you seriously, too. This attention to detail begets professionalism, and consistency overall is a simple way to build trust. It reassures clients, potential hires, and collaborators that you mean business. When your team is introduced online through thoughtfully coordinated portraits, it creates a strong and lasting impression.
Think about when you go to visit a company’s website. If the ‘about’ page displays team headshots with varying styles, lighting, and backgrounds, it might feel a little scattered and might distract from the messaging and the overall look and feel. On the other hand, a uniform set of professional team headshots tells a different story, reflecting a business that’s well-organized and invested in its people, wanting them (and the organization) to look their best. To go a step further, adding group portraits of your entire team can be a powerful way to reinforce the connection and collaboration among your staff while offering versatile branding portraits for your marketing and website.
When it comes to professional team headshots and branding images, we’ll help you plan the best style and location that matches your organization.
Building a Refined Brand Image
At Teresa Porter Photography, we keep the process simple and completely tailored to your business. We help each member of your team look and feel their best, while maintaining a consistent style that fits with your overall brand. This includes guidance on clothing, poses and expressions, and keeping lighting and composition uniform across the team to ensure cohesive professional team headshots. Even if being in front of the camera feels as awkward as a sweaty-palmed first date, we’ll walk each of your team members through it with a little coaching, great lighting, and a few laughs along the way.
We know that every business is different, so we offer flexible options to suit your needs. Your team can visit our Downtown Cary studio, or we can come to your office for on-site photography. We also make it easy to integrate new team members with future executive headshots that seamlessly match the existing aesthetic.
Be You, With Us
A coordinated set of professional team headshots gives your business a go-to library of friendly, on-brand images. Whether it’s for your team page, a social media post, or that last-minute feature in a press release, having employee headshots and branding portraits at the ready makes it easy to show up with consistency and confidence wherever your audience finds you.
Ready to refresh your team’s headshots? Contact us today.
by Yasmin Bruce | May 20, 2025 | Featured, Headshots, Personal Branding
Meet our friend, Dr. Regina Nagarajan. Regina, a psychiatrist in Cary, knows that when launching a new business, how you position your brand is crucial to its success. In the wellness industry especially, branding on your website must convey the feeling you create for your clients. So Regina turned to Teresa Porter Photography for capturing branding portraits that would be used on her website to show the heart of her new private practice, Joyful Minds Psychiatry. Combining mental health and lifestyle services, her practice needed personal branding portraits that felt both professional and approachable while reflecting her holistic approach to wellness.
Creating a Visual Identity for a New Brand
Our goal for Regina’s session was to craft a collection of website branding images that would seamlessly showcase her new practice to the community and potential new clients. We began with professional headshots of Regina and her colleague, Dana, ensuring that they had polished, confident portraits for their website, social media, and any future marketing materials.
But beyond the traditional headshots, we wanted to capture what makes this practice unique. To highlight the lifestyle aspect of their work, we incorporated relaxed, candid branding portraits showing the two of them collaborating. From teaching classes and working together in a mock-office setting, to practicing yoga stretches and calm, centering moments, all at our studio in Downtown Cary, NC. Having a diversity of backdrops and creating the feeling of being in their office helped their branding portraits tie into their wellness philosophy, making the portraits feel authentic and brand-aligned.
From professional headshots to lifestyle branding portraits and showing some of their services, we helped Joyful Minds Psychiatry tell their story.
Professional Branding Portraits with a Personal Impact
Understanding that mental wellness thrives in calming environments, we introduced subtle elements to reinforce their brand. We used soft, natural lighting and added plants and fruits to the setting, to create a warm and inviting atmosphere that reflected their practice’s focus on holistic health.
The session also included a breathwork portion, where we captured behind-the-scenes moments of mindfulness and connection. These candid images added variety to their collection while giving future clients a glimpse into the compassionate, human-centered care they can expect when working with Joyful Minds Psychiatry.
When Your Brand’s Images Tell a Story
We know that branding portraits are a crucial component in the capturing the heart of your story, and therefore, your brand’s mission. For Joyful Minds Psychiatry, these branding images needed to convey mental health care and their lifestyle services that promote their patients’ overall well-being. The final collection of branding portraits offered everything that Regina and Dana would need introduce their brand with confidence: professional headshots for LinkedIn, personal branding portraits for their website and social media, and authentic, behind-the-scenes images that show their practice in action.
Be You, With Us
At Teresa Porter Photography, we specialize in branding photography that goes beyond the ordinary. Whether you’re launching a new venture, rebranding your business, or just refreshing your professional image, we’ll create personal branding portraits and business photography that not only look beautiful but also tell your story.
by Yasmin Bruce | May 13, 2025 | Featured, Headshots, Personal Branding
When it comes to professional photography for your business, it’s easy to assume that a headshot will check all the boxes. While professional headshots are the essential first step in photography for entrepreneurs and small-business owners building a brand, they can only capture a fraction of what makes you and your business unique. They are not always enough to tell the full story of your brand and that’s where branding photography comes in.
Professional Headshots are perfect when simple is what you’re looking for, but Branding Photography is there for when your brand needs a little more.
What are Professional Headshots?
A professional headshot is a polished portrait that generally captures you from the shoulders or waist up. Its primary goal is to present you as confident, professional, and approachable. Headshots are commonly used for LinkedIn profiles, business cards, company websites, and speaking engagements. If you don’t have a set of headshots, you’ll likely run into a stumbling block when the time comes that you need them.
Professional Headshots are ideal for anyone who:
- Is a small-business owner who doesn’t have a set of headshots yet, or has outdated headshots.
- Uses LinkedIn and needs to update their profile picture
- Needs a professional portrait for their resume
- Has to provide a headshot to their employer
- Needs a portrait for a speaker biography or a one-pager
Key Features:
- Usually close-up or waist-up framing
- Neutral backgrounds at one location, with three outfits for versatility
- They have a professional feel and are versatile for business needs
Professional headshots are perfect when you need a clean, consistent image that communicates your credibility. They’re a budget-friendly option when your visual presence is limited or when you’re part of a larger organization where consistency across team portraits is important.
What is Branding Photography?
Branding photography builds on the foundation of a headshot, but adds depth, personality, and context. It includes a variety of branding images that help your audience connect with your work, values, and visual style. These sessions are ideal for entrepreneurs, coaches, realtors, creatives, and small-business owners who want to show up consistently across their website, marketing materials, and social media.
Branding Photography is ideal for anyone who:
- Is an entrepreneur, small-business owner, coach, creative, realtor, or anyone who wants to bring their brand to life
- Needs a collection of images to use across their marketing (think website banners, blog posts and email newsletters etc.)
- Is looking for branded images that they can use for an extended time (our Branding Experience session will give you enough content for a whole year!)
Key Features:
- A variety of settings and wardrobe changes
- Locations that help bring out the personality of your brand
- Lifestyle portraits that show your process and work environment
- Branding images that reflect your values, personality, and client experience
- Social media-ready content designed to help you show up consistently online
With branding photography, your portraits show you in your best light while also highlighting how you work, how clients experience your services, where you work, and what sets your business apart. These portraits give you a collection of marketing images you can use across every part of your online presence.
Whether your style is more corporate or colorful, our professional headshots and branding photography will help you show it.
When to choose a Branding Session over Professional Headshots
Professional headshots serve a purpose, but for small-business owners, headshots are not always enough for what you need. Your audience wants to get a sense of who you are, how you work, and what they can expect from you. If you don’t have images that portray that as yet, or you find yourself using the same couple of images every time, it’s time to book a branding session. Remember: a well-rounded collection of branding images helps you connect, build trust, and attract the right clients.
Our branding sessions go beyond just taking beautiful images (though we’ll do that, too!). We help you select outfits, locations, and props that feel natural and on-brand. From the planning stage to your portrait session through to editing and final image delivery, our process is built to help you show up confidently online. Whether your brand is colorful and fun, or more refined and professional, we’ll create images that feel true to you.
Branding sessions give you the content you need to:
- Keep your website and marketing fresh
- Maintain consistency across all your platforms
- Support launches, promotions, or events
- Create evergreen content for blogs and social posts
- Showcase the personality behind your brand
- Stand out against competitors in your industry
A headshot may introduce you to your audience. Personal branding photography helps them remember you. People connect with people, and when they can see your values, your energy, and your professionalism in a portrait, they are more likely to engage.
Which One Do You Need?
If your only goal is a few professional portraits for your resume or company website, a headshot session is a smart choice. But if you’re launching a business, updating your site, or working to grow your personal brand, investing in branding photography gives you the variety and flexibility to keep your content engaging and relevant.
Be You, With Us
At Teresa Porter Photography, we offer both professional headshots and branding photography sessions, and we’ll help you choose which is right for you. Whether you’re starting a new job, refreshing your LinkedIn profile or building a stunning collection of website branding images and content for social media, we’ll tailor your session to your goals and help you achieve them.
by Yasmin Bruce | May 6, 2025 | Featured, Headshots, Personal Branding
Meet our friend, Dr. Amy Earwood. When Earwood Dentistry realized that they needed to update their team headshots and corporate branding photography, Amy reached out to us. Amy wanted a refined-yet-approachable feel to their office’s corporate team photography and employee headshots that reflected the heart of their practice in Raleigh, NC: friendly, down-to-earth, and patient-focused.
We know that when you run a business, first impressions matter. But this is even more true when your clients are patients, who are looking for a medical provider that they feel comfortable with. Patients want to feel welcomed, at ease, and cared for – so communicating that feeling effectively in team headshots and branding photography is an essential part of the process. Uniquely, team branding portraits can make the difference of a patient feeling like they speaking to a stranger, and a patient speaking to someone they have already seen online, on your website, for example. In this way, team photography helps to build connection and trust long before your patient, or client, meets you in real life.
From team headshots to branding for Dr. Earwood and Dr. Garcia and environmental images of their practice, we captured it all at their office in Raleigh, NC.
A Personalized Approach for a Busy Practice
Tasked with team headshots for 14 people, we knew that flexibility was key. Our role included making every image reflect each employee, as well as their team and business as a whole. We worked closely with Earwood Dentistry to ensure the smoothest experience, and as we would be taking images of their facility in Raleigh, we worked around their patient schedule, finding a time that didn’t disrupt their day-to-day operations so that we could bring our studio to their office. Our careful planning allowed us to capture the entire team in a way that didn’t compromise their commitment to patient care or impact their busy schedules, but still resulted in authentic, beautiful team photography.
Team Headshots and Branding Portraits
Our goal for this session was to create a collection of team headshots that represented the family atmosphere at Earwood Dentistry. We began with individual employee headshots, focusing on expressions that felt natural, warm, approachable, and true to their personalities, while also creating brand uniformity. These weren’t stiff, corporate portraits but authentic, polished images designed to make patients feel at ease when they visited the website or walked through the door.
For Amy and her colleague, Dr. Garcia, the two dentists at the practice, we focused on personal branding portraits that captured them in action with patients (where consent had been given ahead of time) so that future patients could know what to expect from their appointment. We created a collection of branding images that balanced their expertise with relatability, and that demystified the experience from the patient perspective. Their corporate branding photography now gives them a consistent and completely branded presence across their website and social media, which showcases how they help and care for their patients.
To round out the session, we documented the team in action, capturing candid moments that highlight the collaborative, friendly energy that defines Earwood Dentistry. From welcoming patients at the front desk to working together behind the scenes, these images offer a true-to-life glimpse into what it’s like to be cared for by the Earwood Dentistry team. We also took environmental portraits featuring the bright and inviting office atmosphere, so that patients can get a feel for the space before they even arrive.
With classic headshots that gave a consistent brand look, to branding images of the staff in action, Earwood Dentristy now has a variety of branding images that they can use on their website, social media and across their marketing.
A Lasting First Impression
We collaborated with Earwood Dentistry to create team headshots and overall branding portraits that leave them with everything they need to elevate their online presence. Whether they need images to go alongside team biographies on their website to photography for social media and printed materials, they now have a versatile collection of portraits that can be used wherever the need is and that reflect the compassionate, family-friendly care they’re known for in the Raleigh area.
Be You, With Us
At Teresa Porter Photography, we get to the heart of what your business is about. We take the time to consult with you about what it is that you want to represent and then create it in beautiful branding portraits and team headshots. We especially know how important it is for medical, dental and therapeutic practices to feel approachable and trustworthy from the very first glance and that’s why we offer team headshots and corporate team photography designed to represent your brand ethos, while fitting in with your schedule.
Ready to refresh your organization’s online presence? Get it in touch today.
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