Headshots, lifestyle, product, workspace, food – and why the best shoots usually include a bit of everything
When you start looking into photography for your business, the terminology can feel overwhelming.
Headshots. Personal branding. Lifestyle photography. Product photography. Workspace photography. What does it all mean – and which one do you actually need?
The honest answer is: probably more than one. And I’ll explain why. But first, let me walk you through each type so you can see exactly what’s possible.
Headshot Photography
A headshot is exactly what it sounds like – a photograph of your face that tells people who you are before you’ve said a word. But the best headshots do so much more than that.
They capture your personality. Your warmth. The expression that makes people feel like they already know you. A great headshot isn’t just proof that you exist – it’s a first impression, a trust signal and an invitation all at once.
I’ve been photographing headshots for years and they never get old. Every face is different. Every personality requires a different approach. And every now and then, a headshot leads somewhere completely unexpected.
Take Victoria. I photographed her for a charity project several years ago — she was incredibly reluctant, hated having her photo taken, and nearly said no. Within seconds she had a photo she actually loved. That was the beginning of a relationship that eventually became a working one, and we’ve now been shooting her business together across multiple seasons for almost two years. One headshot. One moment of trust. Everything that followed.
Your headshots are the foundation of everything else – update your profile photo, your website, your email signature. Get them right and everything else gets easier.
Perfect for: everyone.
Seriously, everyone who is the face of their business needs at least one brilliant headshot.
Lifestyle Photography (aka Storytelling Photography)
Lifestyle photography is where things get really interesting – and where most people discover what brand photography can actually do.
Instead of just showing what you look like, lifestyle photography shows what you do. You at work. You with a client. You making something, thinking about something, being somewhere that matters to your brand. It tells a story rather than just showing a face.
Dr Connie Kerali came to me having seen the photos I’d taken of Jane Griffin and loved them. She wanted headshots. But when we had our discovery call and she told me everything she does – GP, coach, hypnotherapist – and described her ideal client as someone like her: professional, loves reading, loves brunch – I knew immediately that headshots alone wouldn’t do her justice.
Connie sent me photos of her home in advance so I could plan the light and the locations. She included her beautiful bathroom – and when I arrived I joked, “Are we taking photos in the bath? You sent me pictures of it!” Then I thought – actually, why not? Fully clothed, with a book, in that gorgeous space. Then the same book in the armchair. Then on the sofa. Suddenly we had three completely different settings for a single concept – and a caption writing itself: “Where do you like to read?”
That’s lifestyle photography at its best. It doesn’t just show who you are. It starts conversations with exactly the kind of clients you want to attract.
I often find myself thinking of captions while I’m shooting – the image and the story it tells arrive together. When you book with me, you’re not just getting photos. You’re getting content ideas too.
I worked with a brilliant snack brand called Scrapples whose marketing manager came to the discovery call with clear ideas about what they wanted. I could see something even better – so I gently pushed back and suggested something completely different. To their credit, they trusted me completely.
The image we created used a slow shutter speed to capture three children running around a kitchen island in a blur of energy and movement — while their mum stands perfectly still in the centre, calmly making packed lunches with Scrapples. It tells the whole brand story in a single frame. This is a snack for real families, real mornings, real life.
It’s one of my favourite images I’ve ever made – and it only exists because they were brave enough to say yes to an idea that wasn’t theirs.
Perfect for: coaches, consultants, therapists, healthcare professionals, creatives – anyone whose personality and expertise are what clients are really buying.
Product photography
If you make, sell or create something physical, product photography is non-negotiable. But the approach varies enormously depending on what you sell and who you’re selling to.
Should your products be isolated against a clean background or shown in context? In use or beautifully arranged? Shot from above, straight on or at an angle? Do you need lifestyle shots showing your product in someone’s hands, in their home, in the wild? These aren’t questions with universal answers – they depend entirely on your brand, your audience and where the images will be used.
I love a product shoot for the creative challenge it presents. Every product has its own personality and finding the right way to show that off is genuinely satisfying.
One of my favourite product moments came on the Bignose & Beardy cider shoot. We were photographing their gorgeous cider bottles and I quietly arranged them into a rainbow on a barrel in the orchard. It was mostly for my own joy, honestly. But they loved it. And it became one of our favourite images from the whole shoot.
Perfect for: food and drink businesses, artisan makers, product brands, shops and retailers, cafés and restaurants.
Food Photography
Food photography sits slightly apart from general product photography because food has a quality all of its own – it needs to look edible, appetising and real, all at the same time.
Styling, light and timing are everything. Food doesn’t wait. You have a window – sometimes literally seconds – before something wilts, melts or loses its lustre. It’s one of the most technically demanding types of photography and one of the most rewarding when it works.
I shot the Bignose & Beardy harvest in autumn and genuinely lost track of time. I was supposed to wrap up and leave – but the orchard just kept giving. Apples piled in crates, bees buzzing around, light filtering through the trees, a sustainable story telling itself in every frame. They walked past at one point and laughed: “You really love an apple.”
They weren’t wrong. But what I was really capturing was their story – the sustainability ethos, the community feel, the beautiful landscape where their cider begins. Nature photography is where my journey as a photographer started, and food and product shoots like this remind me why.
Perfect for: food and drink producers, cafés, restaurants, bakeries, nutritionists and health coaches, farmers markets, product brands.
Workspace photography
Your workspace tells a story too – whether it’s a beautiful café, a clinical surgery, a creative studio or a tiny corner of your living room that you’ve turned into something special.
Workspace photography captures the environment you work in, the details that make your business yours and the atmosphere that clients step into – or that you want them to imagine stepping into.
My most liked and award-winning image to date is the Paint Bar – a glorious, colour-drenched paint shop I stumbled into on a visit with a friend. The owner was happy for me to photograph and I lost myself in there completely. Every jar of pigment, the vintage scales, the hand-painted walls, the man quietly working at his counter. I wasn’t even there on a paid shoot – I just couldn’t put the camera down.
That’s what workspace photography at its best feels like. The space has a soul and the job is simply to show it.
Don’t worry if your workspace is a corner of your living room – read my post on why your house is fine for the full story on that one.
Perfect for: cafés, restaurants, shops, studios, clinics, salons, co-working spaces and anyone whose physical environment is part of their brand story.
Detail & Abstract Photography
Sometimes the most powerful image in a gallery isn’t the one with a person in it.
Details tell the story that portraits can’t. The paint splattered across an artist’s studio floor. A battered enamel cup clutched in a steam train driver’s blackened hands. The careful arrangement of props on a desk that says everything about how someone works before they’ve said a word.
Detail and abstract photography lets you show rather than tell — and it’s some of my absolute favourite work to create.
Most brand photography focuses on the big picture. But often the real story lives in the smaller, quieter moments. A close-up of hands at work. A macro shot of a product’s texture. An abstract detail of colour and light that creates a mood rather than showing a specific thing. These images are the ones that stop someone mid-scroll, make them feel something and keep them looking.
They’re also brilliantly practical. Detail shots give you variation in your content library – something different to break up the headshots and lifestyle images, add atmosphere and keep your feed visually interesting. A gallery without them can feel slightly one-note, however beautiful the portraits are.
Perfect for: every business – but especially creatives, makers, food and drink producers, healthcare professionals and anyone whose physical environment or tools are part of their story.
Why a Mix Is Almost Always Better Than One Type Alone
Here’s the thing about the different types of brand photography: they work best together.
A headshot tells people what you look like. A lifestyle shot shows what you do. A product image shows what you sell. A workspace photo shows where you do it. Together, they build a complete picture of you and your business that no single type could achieve alone.
Connie’s shoot is a perfect example. We covered headshots in the garden, lifestyle shots at her desk, podcast setup images with her microphone, journaling shots at her tiny dining table, brunch images at the café nearby and a surprise bathtub reading shot that became one of her favourites – all in one afternoon, all in and around her home.
Every single setup looked completely different. Together they gave her months of content, multiple platform options and a gallery that told the full story of everything she does.
That’s what I’m always aiming for – not just beautiful images, but a complete, versatile library of content that works for your business every single day.
What I Don’t Offer
Honesty feels important here.
I don’t do white background product photography, studio flash work or large commercial productions with big teams and complex logistics. Not because those things aren’t valuable, they absolutely are, but because they’re not where my heart is and there are brilliant photographers who specialise in exactly that.
I’m a natural light photographer. I work in real spaces, real locations and real light. If that’s not what you need, I’d rather tell you honestly and point you in the right direction than take on work that isn’t my best.
Not Sure Which Types Are Right for You?
That’s exactly what our discovery call is for.
Tell me about your business, your ideal client and what you want people to feel when they land on your website or scroll past your post – and I’ll tell you honestly which combination of photography types would serve you best.
Or if you’d like to start by understanding your current online presence better, a £99 Visual Brand Critique might be the perfect first step.
