I LOVE PINTEREST.  There it’s out there and I know that I’m not alone when I say it or when I spend some time that I’ve probably earmarked for doing the housework or some other super productive task scrolling through ideas and pinning like mad.

Now, I do love it on a personal level that’s for sure. In fact, despite the fact that I am mad-happy married, I am planning at least three rather fabulous weddings on Pinterest that I daydream about fairly often.  I have no idea why a situation would arise where I would be called upon to produce a wedding for myself at short notice, but if it comes along, I’m so ready.

However, I’ve come to love it more and more for work purposes.  It’s proved to be a brilliant planning tool, a portfolio development exercise, a way of communicating with my clients and most importantly of all, a way of my clients letting me know the kind of images that they are looking for and what floats their boat in terms of style.

Pinterest and Photo Shoot Planning

I’ve been working on some new portfolio areas recently – everyone needs a little freshen up now and then and in January I always seem to get the bug to try some new stuff.  New year, new start kind of thing.  Pinterest in the perfect planning tool in both gathering up photos that inspire me and also in letting people know what I am trying to accomplish during my shoots.

Now, I need to be clear on this point.  I don’t pin photos in order to copy them.  It most likely wouldn’t be possible anyway and I’m not into but there’s a flavour to those that I gather together that reflect where I want to go with a shoot.  Some photos are pinned for a feeling they create, a particular pose, an editing technique or just because they have the seed of an idea that I want to develop.  I think Pinterest really falls down when you try to recreate images as exact copies.  A photograph is great because it captures a person (usually in my case, I’m not much of a landscape girl) at a moment in time and you can’t really make that happen twice.

Getting to Know What Client’s Want

Now, given that I’m not the only person on Pinterest with it having more than 100 million monthly active users / Pinterest addicts.  So there’s a good chance when a client has booked a photo shoot with me, they will already have had a nose around to see the kind of thing that’s available and to get an idea of the type of images that they want to create.

A Pinterest board is a brilliant opportunity for me to take a peek at the kind of image they like and they are hoping for and I’m always happy to be invited onto a client’s board so we can work together on generating ideas and styles.  You pin, I pin, we all pin together…

Again, and this goes back to my last section, it’s a terrible idea to just pin a load of things and turn up expecting them to be recreated in the studio.  It just doesn’t work in reality as people are different, my studio is different and my eye as a photographer and style of working will be different to the person who took the original photo.  But in an extremely personal process of creating images that you will love for a life time, it’s a fast track way of getting to know you in a small way and what you’re looking for from your photo shoot.

 

So if you’re planning a photo shoot with me, I always welcome invites to share boards.  You can make it a Secret Board if you like to.  In fact that always makes me feel super special!  We can pin and chat over different ideas and flavours and so when you arrive for your shoot, we’re on the same page and full of creative ideas to really make it go with a bang.

And if you’re not on Pinterest yet, then I’d definitely recommend it.  Just don’t blame me if your hoovering doesn’t get done quite as regularly as you just have to do that ‘one more Pin’.