Personal Branding Portraits: Alison Caswell
Some sessions you look forward to more than others.
Alison and I have been friends for years. I had asked her more times than I can count if I could help her with headshots and personal branding portraits. She finally sent me an email saying she was ready, and I cleared my schedule.
Alison is a self-mastery mentor working with leaders, professionals, and visionaries on spiritual and consciousness elevation. She was launching a new practice and needed images that could carry the weight of that work visually. The moment she described what she was building I understood exactly what the photographs needed to feel like.
Before the shoot
A session like this doesn’t start when the client walks through the door. It starts weeks earlier in the preparation conversations.
Alison and I talked through wardrobe, settled on neutrals and solid colors that would read cleanly on camera, and spent time discussing the overall tone her web designer needed. We developed a clear visual direction for the practice before a single light was adjusted. Kelly, my makeup artist, was part of those early conversations too, which meant everyone arrived on the same page and we could move immediately rather than spending the first hour figuring things out on the fly.
The shoot
The day arrived with good light and a prepped studio. Alison wanted to come across as professional, approachable, kind, and empathetic, so we kept the hair and makeup natural and let her personality do the rest.
We worked through about five looks over a few hours. I remember losing track of time, which is always the sign of a session going well. When the work is flowing and the connection is real, the clock stops mattering.
The reveal
Alison lives in the Portland area, so we did the reveal over Zoom rather than in the studio. The process is identical either way. I walk through the edited selections, we narrow down together, and the client builds their final collection from images they genuinely love rather than ones they can tolerate.
Alison’s reaction is one I won’t forget. There were happy tears. There usually are when someone sees themselves the way a photographer who cares about them sees them. That moment is the whole reason I do this work.
She walked away with a full set of digital files and a handmade folio box of museum-quality prints, images she can use across her website, social media, and marketing for years.
Here’s to Alison and everything she’s building.
