Most GPs never think about how patients choose them, which is fine right up until you want to be chosen for something specific.

Christian Peut is an Adelaide GP with a clear idea of the medicine he wants to practise: chronic disease management for adults, skin cancer, cancer medicine and gay men’s health. He wanted to reach a younger group of patients who value quality, evidence-based care, and he’d noticed that the usual route, a profile on the clinic website and whatever bookings arrive through it, wasn’t going to get him there.

So he went looking for a portrait photographer on Google, found us, and told us something we hear more often than you’d think from professionals. He’d never done any visual branding before and didn’t exactly have a starting point.

Why brand photography for doctors starts with a conversation

The temptation, when you’ve decided you need better photos, is to book a shoot and turn up in your nicest shirt. The trouble is that a photograph can only say what you’ve decided you want it to say, and most people haven’t decided yet.

So before anyone picked up a camera, we sat down with Christian for a one-hour visual consult. We talked about his values, what he was aiming for over the next few years, and, most usefully, how he wanted the people he’s trying to reach to feel when they first come across his profile.

What came out of that hour was a brief with some teeth to it. The images needed to carry trust, care and expertise, and they needed to steer well away from the polished corporate look that so much medical marketing defaults to. We built a colour palette of blues and neutrals with a teal to work off, put together a mood board, and settled on a style we thought his patients would connect with, which is a very different thing from a style that looks impressive to other doctors.

Planning the look so it holds together

The brief shaped every practical decision that followed. We shot at Cog Creative Space against a linen fabric backdrop, because texture reads as warmth in a way that a plain wall doesn’t and creates a distinctive feel to images. A handful of frames went on a clean white background too, since a personal brand needs a few images that will sit anywhere, from a booking profile to a conference program.

Christian did his part brilliantly. He arrived with a whole range of outfits in exactly the shades we’d agreed on. That kind of preparation isn’t vanity – it’s the difference between a set of images that works together for years and a set where every second photo is slightly off-brand.

Settling in a person who’s not used to being in front of the camera

Christian admitted he was a bit nervous at the start, which is true of nearly everyone, including people who spend their working day putting other people at ease. We’d met before the session, so I wasn’t a stranger, and he chose the music, which helps more than you’d expect. Then we just talked, about holidays and food and what he enjoys outside work. He mentioned discovering the joys of duck ramen during his holidays, and for the rest of the shoot, “duck ramen” was a buzzword to generate a smile.

It sounds like a small trick, but it matters. Patients read faces quickly, and a smile that’s been remembered rather than produced is the one that tells them this is someone they can talk to.

What he has now

Over two hours we made an editorial-feeling collection of portraits, including a consultation shot of Christian across a desk from a patient, mid-conversation, which is the image a prospective patient is likely to linger on because it shows them what seeing him might actually be like. Christian was really happy with the results and now has a foundation to build his personal brand on, one that was designed from the start for the patients he wants to see.

If you’re a GP, specialist or one of the many allied health professionals in Adelaide in a similar spot, clear on the work you want to do but less sure how to be found for it, the place to start is a conversation rather than a camera. Our personal brand photography page explains how we run the consult and the shoot that follows.