Shownotes
According to Seth Godin, marketing is no longer about the stuff that you make but about the stories you tell. One such powerful way of telling that story is through photos and images. Professional photographer Shelly Au talks about imagery and visual work, having a business focused on creating high-quality headshots and visual branding. Shelly helps companies communicate their story to the world in an artistic and creative way. He says it’s more than capturing your subject sitting down, taking the photo, getting up, and then leaving. Visual branding is more of how you get people to portray who they are to help businesses succeed and take the next step.
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Visual Branding: Telling Your Story Through Imagery with Shelly Au
We’re incredibly fortunate, we have Shelly Au. He’s from Shelly Au Photography. We’re going to be talking about imagery and visual work with him and why it’s important. Shelly, tell me a little bit about your business and who you serve.
Bob, thank you for having me here. I appreciate it and the opportunity to chat with you on this. My business is focused on two areas. It’s high-end quality headshots and the second part is visual branding. It’s communicating the story of a business and what they’re doing. It’s how you artistically and creatively help them communicate that to the world and the public.
You and I met. I was at a corporate training event and you were doing all the headshots for all of the participants. For most of us rookies, we’ll do a selfie and go, “There’s my photo,” and I stick it on LinkedIn and you look at it and go, “It looks like a bad mugshot from the police department.” Let’s talk about the importance of that headshot in representing who you are.
There’s a lot that goes into it, believe it or not. The general photographer will bring in your studio and shoot you. Keep in mind when I photographed you and many others, I only had ten minutes. I do my best to try to communicate with you and to hear about what you’re doing. All of that helps me pose you the way I get your eyes to look. The way you sit up or down, leaning towards the camera, turn your face. I’m studying you. I’m studying my subject, their face but I’m also trying to bring out who they are as a person. I would pose them differently. I had Frank Shamrock come in and he was a boxer. He had awesome cheekbones and trying to get him as he speaks with his hands going. I definitely study them and try to help them come out. I feel like that separates me from the others as well along with some of the training. I’ve been very fortunate to train under some people who do head shots well. Peter Hurley in New York charges $2,000 for a headshot. I’m part of his crew and I’m crafting what’s best for that person.
I’m fortunate that I’ve already had my headshot done by Shelly. Part of the reason I had him on the podcast was that I thought it was important to talk about the visual conveyance. I can remember we popped out of a meeting. We went down this long hall and we go to this studio that you set up on site. It’s not as simple as your subject sitting down, you take photos and they get up and leave. There’s a whole process that you go through when you do the photo. Let’s talk a little bit about how you get your subject ready and comfortable.
There are a few things there. One is the lighting setup I chose. I have LED lights that are constantly on. Right there, there’s a sparkle in your eyes. It’s not that triggering flash that goes off and I can do that. I have done it that way. That continuous lighting allows a person to relax first of all. I always kneel and when I’m communicating. I have them sit on the chair first. It’s almost talking and finding out about who they are because sometimes people are very serious. That’s who they are and I try to bring that out but sometimes they’re very funny. We get some candids of them. They don’t even know I’m taking pictures of them but I’m grabbing some shots. It’s connecting and telling their story. A lot of people love to talk about themselves so how do you bring that out in them.
I had a customer, I did his headshot at the workshop and he hated taking photos. He said, “Shelly, thank you so much. That was amazing. I hate taking photos.” I didn’t know that. He said, “Let’s work together again.” Afterwards, we connected and he shared about his business. He flew me out to Ohio. I went all the way there. We had this for a week-long. We shot his whole staff, him speaking, all these different things and team shots. He had an event and he told all of his advisors at this event before the meeting. He said, “Do you see that man back there? He’s a photographer from Colorado. I brought him here because when I did the workshop, he took the time to get to know me. I hate taking photos and I’ve never had a photo like that before. I brought him here because as financial planners, we need to take the time to get to know our customers and invest in our people. That’s what we do.” That was so honoring for me that he flew me all the way there to do all this. Since then I’ve flown to Florida and have done all these things, helping company CEOs tell their story of what they are. I have some images. We had Rebecca Walser in Florida. She’s another financial advisor.
The thing that’s interesting in my personal experience, I had an old photo and updated my photo with yours. I had a raft of compliments. More importantly, the compliments were not like, “You looked better than you do.” They basically said, “That captures who you are.” I thought that was important, which comes back to why we’re here. In the business environment, so much of what we see nowadays is social media driven, whether it’s LinkedIn, Twitter, your website and the visual representation on your website. You were talking about eleven judgments. What are your thoughts behind that?
A lot of people love to talk about themselves, so the goal is how do you bring that out in them.
You have a fraction, that seven seconds to capture them. In speaking, you have a few seconds to hook your audience. When people see your profile and if you have a sloppy profile they’re going, “This person’s not serious about himself. They’re not serious about their business.” It’s communicating by seeing, “This person’s professional. Look at them, they’re serious, they’re going after it.” I feel like it’s a big problem. How do we get people to portray who they are, help businesses succeed, take the next step? Let’s create imagery that impacts, wows that, “This is what I’m about.” That’s one of the biggest mistakes people have on their websites. They just throw images on there and then there are too many words and it’s overwhelming. The customer doesn’t know how to navigate and they go to else versus, “It’s very clear what they do, what their message is, who they’re helping and what problem they’re trying to solve?”
I would love to think that it’s rational on the visual interpretation of what we put out there. It’s exactly correct that if you’re serious about your business and branding, then clearly quality imagery work matters. If you do it, you own the rights to your photos instead of snagging them somewhere off the Internet and hoping for the best. Tell us a little bit about how you got involved with the photography world as a business?
I spent seventeen years overseas as a missionary. I did a lot of finances administration. I was a business major out of college. I wanted to give three years back of my life. Three years turned into 22 of that seventeen years overseas. I was helping people do all administrative things; finances, operations, I ran security and we’re talking of twelve countries all together at the head office. At one point we had a group of short-termers come over and they had a camera. They started taking pictures of my kids and I’m like, “That is amazing.” They’re like, “No, it’s in the camera.” I’m like, “No.” As I began to hang out, they let me borrow the camera and it’s like, “This is really fun.”
Visual Branding: Visual branding is communicating the story of a business. It’s how you artistically and creatively help them communicate their story to the world.
My wife saw a difference in me when I had a camera in my hands. I started doing media, videos and things like that. I said, “I want to do something for me in some ways. I’ve been helping others a ton and I want to do something I’m passionate about.” Not that I wasn’t passionate about the mission, I was but I wanted something that was alive in me. I decided to pursue it. I raised a ton of money. I told my Asian boss said, “No,” which you don’t do that. He asked me to take the head operations job. I said, “No, I want to start a media company, a portion of our organization.
He gave me his blessings and then we started to create products. I created a tool called Heart Mirror. It’s using 50 images to allow people to connect with each other. There were no words. We’re in an Asian country, a closed country and I created this tool. I brought in nationals to come in and we all created it together. They named it. We had questions, developed it and it became a product. It was so impactful. One of the most impactful stories for me was I got a letter saying, “I was about to commit suicide. I went to a church, this person laid out these cards and we began to talk. I saw an image of hope and that my life doesn’t have to be this way.”
This tool that I had created allowed people to interact and it helped save a life. We would take it to universities, in business meetings and they would introduce these cards and within five minutes people are tearing. They’re sharing this image, “That looks like my grandmother who passed away.” It allowed people to connect. That was the first time I realized, “Imagery can be used to go to a place where words cannot or human interaction cannot.” I began this journey. I love the story behind images. As I got my Master’s degree in New York, I began to see there’s a lot of powerful imagery and how can that be used to help people communicate themselves and how can that be used for other people’s businesses to communicate their message.
I think about it and you’ve been recognized for some of the stuff that you’re doing because you placed on an Adobe competition.
I got my Master’s and this is my second career. The mid-30s, 40s, with my Master’s degree in New York and got nominated for the Student Adobe Design Achievement Awards in a photography category. My Master’s thesis was the documentary of what was happening in China, broken homes, those homes were being torn down. My teacher who was inducted the Photoshop Hall of Fame in 2005, Katrin Eismann, she’s like, “Shelly, you have to do this project. This is so powerful.” I had documented for two and a half years all that was going on. I had this image where it was a full-blown Chinese character on the wall. It was a normal life with a bicycle, there’s humanity in it and the next year later, half of it was torn down. You could see for miles broken rubble. That was cool because I didn’t know I had that image when I put them together. That became the front and the back of my book, the cover of that book. I turned that into a thesis. I was touring that. When I got to Colorado, moved back to the States, I began touring that to conferences and churches of high schools. That whole thesis was powerful.
You’ve got moved from that. You don’t just do headshots, you’re starting to work with automobile dealerships as well and also small businesses. Let’s talk about your efforts in those areas.
There are a lot of powerful imagery that can be used to help people communicate themselves.
The other part of my business as visual branding. It’s how do we communicate a message through storytelling? I consider myself a visual storyteller. I help companies not only do headshots but look at their websites, making sure the message that they’re communicating flows. I’ve been working with Courtesy Acura here in town. I’m doing a lot of promos for them visually, put things on their websites but bringing the humanity side of the cars. I’m starting to create fun creative things. That is called a composite where we add different elements, yet it’s still the car but his son was flying over to the car, his daughter’s holding on and they’re all in the car. It’s creating a snow scene when it wasn’t snowing. Adding that and telling the story of that.
I’m going over to LA with Frank Shamrock. He’s having me come out there. His daughter is ten years old. She has two agents. I’m going to do actor headshots and she’s very athletic. She has an eight pack he says, I’m going to do a whole Nike sports scene. We’re going after artistic creativity that when someone sees it they go, “Tell me more.” That’s what I’m branching out. I’m doing both headshots. In some ways, they actually tie together because I’m telling the story even in the headshot. I’m telling the story of a person but I feel like this whole visual branding creative side is exciting for me. We’re going after one image and it’s a big production but telling that story.
When you’re out there talking to the business owners and they’re considering whether they take and engage, what are you hearing back from some of the business owners that you’ve worked with about the results that come from the work that you’re doing for them?
Visual Branding: Imagery can be used to go to a place where words or human interaction cannot.
They love it. A girl in Florida, she’s on CNBC, she’s on the news and all that stuff. They love the hits that they’re getting and the images that are coming out of that. I’m still working on my Ohio clients because a lot of times they lose people as well. Their financial service is usually having me remove things but they love that. They want that updated immediately. This Courtesy Acura, he puts it on Instagram, “What do you guys think?” A lot of people interact. Even that in itself, “What do you think?” People are interacting and coming across that. I’ve been hearing a lot of feedback from this whole new visual branding side.
I’ve been studying and I’m learning from a person called Josh Rossi. He creates amazing imagery even for Adobe and all these things. It’s learning under the best and I feel like that’s a business model I’m learning. When I find something, I want to find the best person in that industry and learn from them. That’s where I feel helped me in business. Don’t try and do the free YouTube thing. You can but learn from the best, if you’re going to learn and study under the best. Even my photo retouching, I found a person who retouches well. I buy into their program and I learn from them so my imagery stands out. The way I retouched the skin. I don’t want them to look plastic. I want the wrinkles to show but I want their face to glow. That’s part of my headshots, why it’s so well received is because the way I edit too. It’s not just how a shoot you and get your expressions but it’s how I bring out your color. Making sure everything is who you are but not fake. There’s a fine line.
This is the part of the episode where I ask you a series of questions. What’s the most recent book or an influential book that has altered your perception of what you do or how you run your business?
Seth Godin, he has been impacting me a lot. I’ve made a mind shift. I’m spending about 25% of my time in the development of my business. You get to a certain point where you feel like you’re there but then you forget about the learning piece, realizing that there’s always room for development, always room for learning. This whole part of what Seth and the marketing side of what he’s sharing and producing, his newest book is called This Is Marketing. Right after it was released, I listened to the Audible books. We got the printed copy too. For him, it’s cultivating your clan, your people and going all out to treat them well to develop them and not worry about satisfying everybody. That’s one of the biggest mistakes as business owners. We try to make everybody happy and, in the end, it’s mediocre work. You go after a certain style like my headshots. I do the Peter Hurley style. That is my style. I’ll cut off the head a little bit. People are like, “Why are you cutting off my head?” I want to be closer to you as a viewer. I don’t need to see everything else. I want to see who you are, look into your eyes.
You get into a niche. If you’re passionate about your niche and what you believe, then you communicate it. Verbally is the medium that we’re working on in the podcast. The video does somewhat of a job but it doesn’t do the job when you get up to close the camera for a headshot. It’s a different thing. Before I get too far down the road, if folks want to reach out to you and find you on social media, how do they find you?
ShellyAu.com, that’s my website. I’m on everything, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook. Directly to my headshots, HeadshotsByShelly.com. It will have everything on there.
Looking back over your business, what’s a failure or perhaps at the time, it seemed like a failure that’s helped you with your business?
You want the wrinkles to show but you want their face to glow.
