I don’t know why I still get nervous before photo shoots.
After all these years—and hundreds (maybe thousands?) of sessions—I still occasionally catch myself wondering:
Did they hire the right photographer?
There may have been a little extra pressure going into my shoot with PEFF Med.
They were preparing to launch a brand-new membership-based concierge medical practice in Carroll County, Maryland, and their beautiful new website was quite literally waiting for photographs to bring it to life.
No pressure, right?
Oh, and one other tiny detail:
They didn’t have an office yet.
Building the PEFF Med Brand Before the Doors Even Opened
When Jill Peffall and Madison Whipple came to me to create the photography for Dr. Shawn Peffall’s new practice, PEFF Med itself was still taking shape—including its physical space.
But the brand already had a story to tell.
PEFF Med was being built around something that can sometimes feel increasingly rare in healthcare:
Time.
Time for patients to ask questions.
Time for their physician to really listen.
Time to look at the whole person instead of rushing through an appointment.
Our photographs needed to communicate that.
We needed warmth. Connection. Expertise. Movement. Health.
And we needed enough visual variety to help launch an entire website.
We definitely needed more than a headshot.
What Do You Photograph When the Business Doesn’t Have a Space Yet?
You get creative.
Once I saw PEFF Med’s branding packet, I immediately had a location in mind: a beautiful local college campus.
On a quiet summer weekend, it gave us exactly what we needed—the right architecture, colors, atmosphere, and variety without crowds getting in our way.
Instead of waiting for PEFF Med’s permanent office to be ready, we created the environment ourselves.
And then we got to work.
Dr. Peffall absolutely needed a strong professional portrait, but a website can’t run on one headshot.
We wanted an entire arsenal of imagery his team could pull from.
Photographs that could introduce him.
Images that communicated his personality and expertise.
Patient interactions and movement.
Conversations and examinations.
Medical tools and details.
Environmental portraits.
Horizontal compositions with plenty of breathing room for website copy.
Verticals.
Close-ups.
Wide shots.
Variations, variations, variations.
The goal wasn’t one great photograph.
It was options.
Real People Make Better Photographs
And PEFF Med really committed to making those photographs feel authentic.
In addition to the three founders, four wonderful friends and family members joined us to stand in as patients.
So there we were: eight of us, plus camera equipment, wardrobe, props, and furniture, roaming around a college campus for four hours.
We hauled furniture.
We rolled carts full of camera gear, props, and wardrobe from one location to another.
We changed outfits.
We staged examinations.
We sweated.
And we laughed.
A LOT.
The jokes started almost immediately and never really stopped.
One person’s eyebrows somehow earned the names Igor and Eye-gor.
Someone else was lovingly teased about his “chicken wing arms.”
And for reasons I still cannot explain, I spent a portion of the afternoon calling Jacob…
Alex.
“Nope. Wait. That’s right. His name is actually Jacob.” 😂
Thankfully, they kept me anyway.
The Elevator Selfie
About halfway through the shoot, I did something I almost never think to do.
I asked everyone for a selfie.
We were all piled into an elevator together—clients, friends, family, gear—and I pulled out my phone.
I love that photograph.
Not because it’s beautifully composed.
Not because the lighting is perfect.
Not because anyone carefully planned it.
I love it because of the smiles.
By then, we’d already been working hard for about two hours.
And I’m not just talking about me.
My clients had been posing, smiling, thinking creatively, changing outfits, moving furniture, following directions, and trusting me for two straight hours.
Being photographed is exhausting.
But look at those faces.
You can feel the friend energy packed into that tiny elevator.
Somewhere along the way, this had stopped feeling like eight people working through a commercial photography shot list.
We were just having fun together.
53 Finished Photographs—and a Website Waiting for Them
At the end of our session, PEFF Med walked away with 53 finished images.
And now comes one of my absolute favorite parts of commercial photography:
I get to see them working.
PEFF Med’s website is live, and it is filled with photographs from our session.
A photograph becomes a website banner.
Another introduces a service.
Another supports a message about patient care.
Another becomes a physician portrait.
Another can become a social media post, press image, advertisement, newsletter graphic, speaking-engagement bio, or marketing piece we haven’t even thought of yet.
Instead of someone on the PEFF Med team asking:
“Do we have a photo for that?”
They have options.
And THAT is exactly what I want to accomplish with a commercial branding session.
That’s the Difference Between a Headshot and a Branding Library
You don’t necessarily need 53 photographs.
You don’t necessarily need the perfect office.
And you definitely don’t need to know exactly where every photograph will eventually be used.
You just need to think beyond what you need today.
Maybe that’s your headshot plus five strong environmental portraits.
Maybe it’s a handful of staged images showing what you actually do.
Maybe it’s your team interacting.
Your hands at work.
Your tools.
Your products.
Your workspace.
The exterior of your building.
Or the little details your clients experience every day.
And maybe it’s a complete visual library like PEFF Med’s.
We can do a lot with a little.
Maybe You’re More Photogenic Than You Think
There’s one other thing this shoot reminded me of.
Behind the scenes, I see everything my clients never do.
The blurry frames.
The missed focus.
The awkward expressions.
The pose that absolutely did not work.
The test shots.
The photographs that will never see the light of day.
Nobody looks incredible in every single frame.
But I also get to see the exact moment something changes.
I see when someone relaxes.
I see the split second they forget they’re being photographed.
I see the version of them they may have never seen in a photograph before.
People tell me all the time that they’re “not photogenic.”
I don’t believe that for a second.
Maybe you’ve been in the wrong light.
Maybe it was the wrong angle.
The wrong lens.
The wrong mindset.
Or maybe you simply needed someone who knew how to help you feel like yourself.
Nobody looks incredible all the time.
But nearly everyone can look incredible, at least for a moment.
Finding that moment is part of my job.
I went into this shoot wondering, as I occasionally still do:
Did they hire the right photographer?
Four hours, 53 finished photographs, a whole lot of laughter, one crowded elevator selfie, and one gorgeous new website later…
I think we did alright. 😉
And I absolutely fell in love with this work all over again.
