A fellow chocolate-obsessed woman who loves to wear pink, we were bound to hit it off straight away! When my client, Canberra local Natalie Rayner, contacted me to create her personal branding photos and corporate headshots for her new events business, I was quite inspired because she is the first event coordinator I’ve ever worked with, and I think it would be such a cool job to plan events. I was keen to think up some ideas that would help describe her business in Canberra, but when I think about events, I think of heavily decorated tables and event spaces. Natalie from N21 Events specializes in the coordination of corporate events in Canberra, so the look had to be quite different.
Being a service-based business, Natalie was finding it really hard to promote what she does for her clients because it’s so much more than planning a party. “My talent lies in taking a concept and applying creative and pragmatic thinking to deliver an event that not only meets the client’s original vision but exceeds it,” Natalie says.
We discussed the process of what it takes to plan an event for a corporate client and decided to incorporate behind-the-scenes shots of the little extras she includes, like packing promotional materials before an event, which is part of her service.
As far as portraying her as the CEO of her brand, it was important for Natalie to show she is friendly, approachable, reliable, trustworthy, organized, fun, modern but not too techy. Having many ‘face-to-camera’ headshots was important, as well as many poses with ‘open body language’ to bring a sense of trust to her audience.”
We shot at Hyatt Hotel Canberra where this stunning bright gold staircase was located. Albert Hall features the oversized dark green windows and Jaga Co-Working space which features a modern office design with hints of scandi wood accents. We knew we would be traveling to various we planned out her outfits ahead of time she only carried the necessary things. This was part of the pre-shoot planning I do for my clients. After completing a questionnaire about their needs and desired outcomes of the shoot I build out a plan with outfits and a detailed shotlist to help the process feel more strategic and easeful when the shoot day comes around.
You will notice from the gallery of images that Natalie is dressed in the colour scheme of her brand’s logo which will add so much impact when she adds her images to her N21 website.
As far as photography was concerned I used off-camera Nikon speed light flash for most of the indoor shots on a lightweight manfrotto stand. On personal branding shoots, I need to be nimble, so I don’t want anything heavy or that requires electricity so the speed light and light stand are the perfect solution.
In my camera bag were 2 lenses Nikon 24-70m f2.8 and 70-200m f2.8 and 2 speedlights SB910. Most of the outdoor shots were taken without flash, whereas indoors I used flash the entire time. Sometimes just directly bouncing the flash off the ceiling and other times having the Speedlight on a light stand to make it more directional and dramatic.
If you want to know more about N21 Events in Canberra head to the website here.
