Diverse Stock Photography & When to do a Custom Branded Shoot

My top recommendations for stock photography & custom photoshoots:

Not every client has the budget to do a custom photoshoot and sometimes it’s not needed (right away). They’re great to use in situations such as blogs or social media posts. As someone who has scrolled through thousands of pages looking for the perfect photo for my clients and projects, I’ve noticed a few things. One is that a lot of the stock photography is being sold to the same sites. That means all of the models look the same and there’s lack of diversity!

Another fun fact: There’s actually a famous woman who has made her living doing stock photography and if I saw her on the street I would recognize her. She’s a Canadian lady who does look mixed race and I’ve used her in skincare projects as well as fitness projects as well as food projects. The kicker is I actually saw her on a billboard when I was traveling in PERU!!! Read: The most famous model in the world you’ve never heard of.

So I was really excited to find a new souce of stock photography and that’s when I was introduced to a site called Tonl.co which showcases ethnicity in their models.

Tonl.co Diverse Stock Photography

Here is the Tonl mission statement:

TONL seeks to transform the idea of stock photography by displaying images of diverse people and their stories around the world.

Our voices and visibility matter. Photography and storytelling can help humanize and hopefully diminish the stereotypes and prejudice against black and brown people, especially. We wanted to challenge the stale, homogenous look of traditional stock photography by showcasing the many ethnic backgrounds of every day people.

Pros & Cons for Stock Photography:

Pros of Stock Photography: Great for blogs, social media posts, background banners, good finds = creating the mood for your brand.

Cons of Stock Photography: It can make your product look generic = doesn’t help sell your product. You may also accidentally choose outdated looking photography making your product seem unrelatable.

My favorite sites for stock photography.

Free:

1. www.Unsplash.com - I would say these photos are more modern and are shot with the intention to be used in design applications such as website backgrounds and other marketing materials. The contrast is usually shot in a style that doesn’t need a lot of editing for text to be placed on top.

2. https://burst.shopify.com - Also some great photography but it’s hard finding photos that look cohesive with your style. Also its highly likely that other Shopify sites are using the same stock photos.

Almost Free:

1. Tonl.co - 1 photo for ~$2 dollars on their monthly plan. I am so excited to have discovered this stock photo site that showcases diversity and various ethnic backgrounds.

1. www.depositphotos.com - Bundle prices of 100 photos for $100 dollars. This is my go to place for finding stock photos on a budget. They have a large variety of different kinds of photos (various couples cooking in the kitchen, specific food recipes) .

2. www.Shutterstock.com - Bundle price is about 2 images for $30 & 5 for $50 They also have a good choices so I’ll check here if I don’t see anything above.

Higher End:

1. www.gettyphotos.com - 1 photo for $175. These are higher quality photos and I have had companies pick from getty photos. Also keep in mind the more expensive your photos are the less likely your competitors have the same ones on their site too.

Custom Photography:

Sometimes, you need to have your product showcase in real use situations. You want your customer to know what it’s like to experience the product by having imagery that they can relate to. They become the models in the photos and it’s the step that helps them click the buy button. Stock photos can be good for when your company is new and starting out but you will always come to a point where you’ll need custom photography to elevate your company to the next level.

4 people that I recommend:

1. Create With Gusto -

Work by Create with Gusto

Angela of Create with Gusto has unique and creative photography that’s great for brands that need lifestyle shoots or more content for social media. I’ve teamed up with her and upload her photos to my client’s site monthly. She turns the photos around fast and each set is unique and different from the last!

2. FuturesPast.co -

Work by Futures Past Co

Ian and Alyssa share your brand’s story through both photo and video! I’ve admired the work they’ve done with Cafe Agave. Doesn’t their work make you feel like you’re ready for a spiked cold brew on the beach?

3. Hale Production Studio -

Work by Hale Production Studio

Kirk has a gorgeous studio space in San Diego that’s modern and trendy and has room for larger shoots. They have a kitchen, bedroom, living room space for their shots, and a team that’s capable to handle both photo & video for ads. I love the work they did for Chosen Foods & Bonafide Bone Broth!

4 .63 Moons Photography -

63 Moons Photography - Great for personal brand photos

If you need good team photos for your “About” page, Alyssa is your gal! Or if you are a consulting business that is solely based around you and your services then it’s a great idea to have some professional headshots. PS. 63 Moons Photography did my website headshot/brand photography!

Even if you have your photography set, don’t forget to give it a refresh! Are you still using stock that looks like it’s from the 90s? That won’t resonate with your audience anymore. Ready to see how picking the right photos can help your customers TRUST your brand? Let’s chat!

How I helped my client make 10K in the first month online and during Covid-19

Finally! A graph we all like to see!

I helped my food client make 10K in revenue during the FIRST month her shop went live on her website AND it was during Covid-19. I remember as she told me her wholesale accounts were canceling on her left and right.

Quickly I uploaded all her products to e-commerce on Squarespace and set up payment through Stripe . Then the next day news hit about #shelterinplace and everybody had to pivot and make adjustments to their business. We were ready to focus on online deliveries and offered her food products directly to the customer.

The main thing that helped: Reinvigorating her Instagram account. There were no new posts for the last 4 months. We decided to commit to posting 2x a day and strategically planned around new limited flavors and new products. (One of our posts received 37k views!)

This was in addition to other social media strategies and web things like redeeming our Google Ad Words credit, turning on abandoned cart, creating a yelp page, creating a newsletter form and many more micro things that added up.

“Done is better than perfect” was our motto. While in the state of the unknown, I’m happy to have had her trust!

www.denisegeedesigns.com

5 Tips to help you work from home

Hi Friends! A lot of companies are requiring my friends to work from home this week to slow the spread of Covid-19. My friends are also worried about going crazy cooped up inside all day!

I wanted to share some things that have helped me stay focused, happy, and motivated working from home. I’ve been working from home the past 3 years now!

🌟 1. Get dressed for the day: Act as if you’re going into the office. It’s so much fun to stay in your Pjs but getting dressed sets the tone for a productive day. You won’t feel the need to crawl back in bed. Do your hair and make-up even if you won’t see anybody else!

👩🏻‍💻 2. Find a space in your home that you’ll designate to do work. Clear it off of all distractions, set up monitors, and make it mimic your desk at work. Don’t work from your bed if you can avoid it. Working from your bed confuses the boundaries of sleep and work. Keep ergonomics in mind!

😴 3. Continue a sleep schedule: it’s so easy to want to watch movies and stay up late now that you don’t have 8am meetings but it’s so much harder to get through the week with a confused sleep schedule. I do recommend catching up on your sleep if you need it!

💃 4. Move your body! Now that you got an hour back from that long commute.. there’s no excuse to not dedicate at least 30 min to exercise. This is what helped me the most working from home. Your body and mind will thank you. At this point in time I think it’s safe to go for walks outside — even if it’s just around your neighborhood.

🏃🏻‍♀️🏃🏻‍♀️ 5. Move & Make it Social. I’ve definitely FaceTimed friends while we play the same YouTube exercise video and we watched each other work out together.😅 Ask your friends to schedule walks the same time you take your break and call each other on your walks!

My friends with kids are setting “reading times, play times, nap times” to mimic what was done at school/daycare. My fiancé will be working at home with me now and we’ve had to take calls in separate rooms. It can be a challenge and I don’t always follow it so strictly but I hope they help if you’re in a work from home rut!


📸: Brandshoot by www.63moonsphotography.com

Pays to Be Brave Conference - San Diego

The past weekend I attended the two day - Pays To Be Brave conference at the Sheraton in downtown San Diego. There were various entrepreneurial speakers there, all with 7 figure businesses speaking about how to find your niche and market towards your audience (mostly through social proof/word of mouth).

If I could share one “hack” that I thought was so genius and completely obvious was utilizing your text replacement shortcuts on your phone to answer social media questions you get over and over again. You want to be personal on social media and maybe you’re not ready for a social media manager or software so you’re running the show yourself. This is something that Chalene taught us.

Let’s say that the number one question you get is "what ingredients are in your turmeric mix?” It’s probably answered under that post showcasing the drink, or in your instagram highlights or even … the product page on your website! But people can’t be bothered to clicking the link in your bio so the best way to have amazing customer service is to respond via comment or DM without saying ”please look at our website…”.

On iphone go to General > Keyboards > Text Replacement.

• Under “phrase” you would type out exactly what’s in your phrase such as the ingredients and maybe even add the ingredient’s benefits.

• Under “shortcut” you would type the characters that would represent this answer. For example you could write “prodT” (Product Turmeric).

• Then when responding to the question you just type out “prodT” and then the suggested message will pop up above your keyboard. Click it and there you have it. A long paragraph that you didn’t have to type a million times over and over again!

This is what the text replacement screen looks like

When you’re done and responding to a message, the suggested text shows up above the keyboard.

Click it and the paragraph is pasted! (This was just placeholder text I made up on the fly so don’t read too closely) :)

No more exhaustion from responding to the exact same questions! Plus … finding the right emojis can take forever!

Let me know, do you use this trick already?