A photographer explains why you should invest in professional pics
Portrait of Michelle Dougherty (Photos by Kathleen Dreier)
Photography has the ability to freeze special moments in time. And for entrepreneurs, it has the potential to boost business, too.
Statistics cited by Shopify reveal that articles with imagery receives 94% more views than those without.
Kathleen Dreier, a Tucson-based photographer, can attest to the power of photography — whether she’s photographing corporate clients, capturing family or professional portraits, documenting events or collecting images for branding purposes.
As a photographer who travels across Arizona and beyond, completing 165 sessions in 2023 alone, Dreier uses her unique approach to ensure that the authenticity of the project or the client shines through.
“I’m completely dedicated to authentically portraying who they are,” Dreier, a member of Local First Arizona’s Business Coalition, said. “I find that, with small business owners, there is a movement towards seeing real people doing their real jobs in a way that is very professionally done, but there is a sincerity in the final imagery.”
Dreier, who recently chronicled Local First’s Arizona Good Business Summit, has a few thoughts on why small businesses should invest in professional photography, how to maximize the results and ways to shake those pesky nerves before a shoot.
Arizona Good Business Summit speaker Mariah Zavala
What advice do you have for a small business owner considering a branding session?
I always encourage a branding session that is inclusive of a variety of different things so a person has a lot of different images they can work with for social media, articles and presentations. I try to be as broad in what my coverage is depending upon the type of imagery they would like to have.
I have a background as a social worker – for more than three decades – so that skillset pulls into my work with small business owners. It’s really important to be able to actively listen to what they want and the type of imagery they want.
Do you have any examples of how you actively listened to your clients?
I worked with a playwright, and she wanted to bring an ironing board out to the desert and put her laptop on top of it, with the mountains and saguaros as a backdrop. It was lovely, and it conveyed her down-to-earth nature and who she is as a mother and multi-tasker.
Tucson playwright Milta Ortiz
I also did a two-day photo session with some web designers, and we talked about things that revealed their personalities. One of them had an educational component, so I photographed her doing volunteer work.
Do you think it’s important to capture work in a more natural setting, as opposed to a posed portrait?
There’s a whole movement towards being more authentic. Small business owners are all working very hard, and we don’t fit into a particular mold. The people who are drawn to me want something that really shows who they are. It could be a plumber on the job site, and I'm photographing them with a customer. People want to see what people actually do.
Guinean dance master Youssouf Koumbassa teaches a class in Tucson
Professionals like you are able to capture images with better quality than a phone, right?
A professional photographer invests a lot of time and energy into their own personal training. They invest tens of thousands of dollars into proper gear. The quality of the images that come from professional gear is far superior to that of a phone. And we understand composition and lighting. My particular speciality is to not interfere with what is happening.
What enables you to capture people’s authenticity?
I study people. That’s the social worker in me. The type of photographer that I am is more documentary style, so you have to be able to understand human nature a little bit, and I realize that my social work skills come into play on each assignment I do.
Andy Schmitt and Jaime Ball
How do you help people feel more at ease?
I give them guidelines that I will follow so they know everything I won’t do. Like, I won’t make them make certain facial expressions or gestures, and I won’t ask them to smile.
One of the wonderful things about doing branding sessions with someone while they’re doing their work is they’re doing their work. They’re not thinking about the photos after a while, because I’m stealthy.
I’m photographing those in-between moments when people don’t know that they’re being photographed. They reach a point that they’re no longer paying attention that I’m documenting them, and that’s where the beauty comes.
Monica Williams Zeta
Kathleen Dreier is available for photography sessions anywhere in Arizona and beyond at KathleenDreier.com.
Want to become a Local First Arizona member? Join our Business Coalition at LocalFirstAZ.com/coalition-member.
