You may have noticed the moniker at the top of my website refers to Visual Storytelling. When I was developing the look and feel for my business, instead of referring to myself as only a photographer, I wanted a descriptive that felt authentic to me - who I am and not just what I do. On a recent social media post, I introduced myself as a photographer, visual storyteller and content creator. In my former career, I honed my storytelling skills as an animator on film projects for over a decade. It taught me so much about composition, movement, and capturing emotional truths in even the smallest of moments.
When you think about your own story and how to share it with your clients, what is top of mind? Do you think of the classic question “What do you do?” and have ready a one or two word answer, or maybe you’ve even crafted an elevator pitch - something that delivers in a few sentences what you do and why you do it. But there's so much more to us than our job titles and description.
Love your story.
What I love most in my work as a visual storyteller is collaborating with my friends and clients to develop their own visual story to accompany what they bring to the world. Call it personal branding - a common term which I use in my own offerings - or in a more fitting description of how I work: using natural light to create meaningful imagery that tells the story of the people I serve, and creating experiences that transform and empower how my clients fell about themselves and their work.
That's why I do what I do. How about you?
Great photos create a look and more importantly a feeling about you and your offerings - images can tell your story, why you do what you do, and create connections with the people which whom you most want to establish a working relationship. It could be through photos of YOU in a meaningful location that help potential connections envisage what it might be like to work with you; photos that share your work (products, food, art) and you interacting with it; or photos creating genuine moments that show your WHY. I love helping my clients create their own meanings for why they are on the unique path they're traveling, if they haven’t already. It leads to images that aren’t just capturing a moment in time but those deeper emotional truths that make people want to connect and work with you.
I'd love to collaborate with you and tell YOUR story.
This framed print has been a constant in various locations around The Hivery since I joined as a member in 2015. It now lives in my home office, gifted to me by Grace Kraaijvanger. It reminds me every day why I do what I do.
A continuing story…
Part of my story is my time as a team member for The Hivery, an inspirational community built by Founder Grace Kraaijvanger to create meaningful work and empower women. In Grace’s words: a place “to create, to express, to help each other in this story called life.” In my time there, leading up to the pandemic when the spaces closed and the virtual community expanded and grew, I learned how to accept support and help in my journey as a visual storyteller, and how to support other women with their own journeys. Although both physical locations have closed, the community created by Grace and her legion of supporters lives on. I’m so grateful for all of it.
Onward.
cheers,
kim