Behind the scenes of a Signature brand photography shoot with children's author and Eco Able founder, Dani Seatter.
01 Dani Seatter, Author and Founder
Dani Seatter is the founder of Eco-Able, a multi award winning sustainable brand, helping children and families to make a conscious connection to the planet and to one another through purposeful, educational books and resources and made-to-last gifts.
02 Collection
Signature session.
03 Purpose
To create a versatile collection of brand photographs that showcased Dani’s personality, products and hands-on creative process, bringing the story behind Eco Able to life.
The Brief
As a personal brand photographer working with independent business owners across Cheltenham, the Cotswolds and Gloucestershire, I love helping people show the story behind their business. My Signature shoot with Dani, children’s author and founder of Eco Able, was a lovely example of exactly that.
Some clients have businesses with so many different layers that there’s a real opportunity to tell a much bigger story through their photographs. Dani is one of those people.
You might know her through her books. Dani is a children’s author whose work is rooted in something that matters deeply to her: teaching children to care for the world they’re growing up in.
As a personal brand photographer working with independent business owners across Cheltenham, the Cotswolds and Gloucestershire, I love helping people show the story behind their business. My Signature shoot with Dani, children’s author and founder of Eco Able, was a lovely example of exactly that.
Some clients have businesses with so many different layers that there’s a real opportunity to tell a much bigger story through their photographs. Dani is one of those people.
You might know her through her books. Dani is a children’s author whose work is rooted in something that matters deeply to her: teaching children to care for the world they’re growing up in.
Her books explore environmental awareness, recycling, ocean pollution and looking after the planet, but in a way that feels joyful and engaging rather than worthy or heavy. She’s written several books now, each beautifully illustrated by a local illustrator and brought to life with the same attention to detail that runs through her work.
Her most recent book is different in tone, though no less important. About Hedgehog is a story about grief, written for children but with a message that resonates with all of us.
Dani is also working on an ambitious campaign to get a copy into every primary school across the UK, with businesses sponsoring individual books. It’s a wonderful initiative, and one that gives the book’s message an opportunity to reach so many more children.
And there’s another lovely detail: Dani once sent David Attenborough a copy of one of her earlier books. He wrote back!
Beyond her books, Dani is the founder of Eco Able, a business bringing together carefully chosen, ethical and sustainable products, many inspired by the themes in her books.
She previously ran a shop in Cirencester selling environmentally conscious products and has since developed a range of gift packs, new baby sets and thoughtfully curated collections.
Everything is carefully sourced, wrapped and presented. Dani is meticulous about where her products come from, believes in paying makers fairly and puts a huge amount of thought into the details.
When Dani booked her Signature brand photography shoot, she knew she wanted more than a collection of portraits. She wanted to show people what goes on behind the scenes of Eco Able.
The wrapping of the gift packs. The arrangement of the books. The little details that go into creating each product.
She wanted photographs that would give her audience a better feel for how she works and what makes her business different.
And that gave us a really lovely brief to work with.
Bringing the vision to life
Rather than simply photographing the finished products, we built in plenty of time to capture Dani actually doing the things she does every day.
Close-up detail shots of her products and hands. Images of her wrapping gift packs, arranging books and putting collections together. Alongside these, we created some more relaxed portraits and photographs that showed Dani in her working environment.
I always think it’s worth remembering that good brand photography isn’t just about having a set of nice portraits for your About page. It’s about showing the different parts of your business, so you have a bank of images that can support all the ways you communicate with your customers.
For Dani, that meant bringing together her books, products, working process and personality in one collection of photographs.
It was also a reminder of how much I enjoy working with businesses that have a strong sense of purpose. Dani knows exactly what matters to her, and that made it much easier to think about the images we needed and how they could work together.
Practicalities on the Day
We spent an autumn afternoon together, mostly working indoors in a warm, styled setting that felt completely in keeping with Dani’s aesthetic.
We made the most of the space to capture the different elements of her business, from close-up product details to the more hands-on process of putting together her gift collections.
We stepped outside too, taking advantage of the autumn light. The changing leaves provided a lovely seasonal backdrop, adding a little warmth and variety to the collection.
This is one of the things I love about working on location: we can make use of the spaces, surroundings and natural light available to create a varied collection of images without needing a studio or lots of complicated set-ups.
The impact on Dani’s brand
A Signature shoot is designed to give you more than a handful of photographs for your website. It’s about creating a useful collection of brand images that you can keep coming back to.
Depending on your business, that might include:
- Portraits for your website, LinkedIn and social media.
- Behind-the-scenes photographs showing how you work.
- Product and detail images that help tell your story.
- Photographs of your workspace, tools, materials or team.
- A variety of images for launches, campaigns, press features and marketing.
For Dani, that meant having photographs that could sit alongside a story about About Hedgehog and her school sponsorship campaign just as comfortably as they could accompany a product launch or a new baby gift pack.
That’s one of the things I love most about brand photography: creating images that don’t just look lovely, but actually give you more ways to talk about what you do.
Dani had plenty to say. It was a pleasure to help her show it.
You can find out more about Dani and Eco Able at www.eco-able.co.uk. About Hedgehog is available now, and if you’re a UK business interested in sponsoring a copy for a primary school, I’d encourage you to get in touch with her directly.
Ready for Your Own Rebrand Shoot?
If you’re a business owner looking for brand photography in Cheltenham, the Cotswolds or Gloucestershire, and you’d like a collection of images that shows more than just what you look like, I’d love to hear what you have in mind. Get in touch, I’ll put the kettle on.
Alternatively, you can find out more about my Signature brand photography sessions here.
