Our Photo Shoot

By Celia Burns on 12th September 2013

In a personal service such as dentistry, it is helpful to patients to be able to meet the people who are going to be treating them before the day arrives when they are actually going to walk into that scary surgery. And before they meet them, it is helpful to be able to see what they look like.

For this reason, we decided to have a photo shoot done by a professional photographer so that we can show our clients who we are on our website and in our literature.

My goodness, there were a lot of reasons why it was a tricky undertaking! Even once we had chosen Captivating Photography to do the shoot, there were the logistical problems – finding a date that 8 members of staff and the photographer could all do, and indeed that didn’t impinge on our customers too much, was the first hurdle. Once that was done, there were uniforms to update, forms to be signed, and pretty flowers to buy to make the place look good.

When the big day dawned, we all confessed to feeling a bit nervous. Charné, our photographer, told us that nearly everyone she photographs says they hate having their photo taken. And we thought that dentists were the only people clients dread seeing! But in fact we had a great time. Charné taught us a few tricks that will come in handy in normal life – including how to look 10 pounds lighter in photos and how to lose the double chin. For a small fee I can be induced to spill the beans.

We also caused a bit of stir when we had our group photo taken outside the practice. Cars were slowing down to watch, and we even got a blast of the blues and twos from a police squad car that went by.

By the end of the day we were confident we had some great pictures in the can and we are looking forward to seeing them properly presented ready for use. But I have realised that it has served a bigger purpose than its original target. Yes, we have the basic pictures we needed. But we also have memories of a really enjoyable day. As a team, we had a chance to chat to colleagues while others were being photographed, learning more about each other than we ever normally get the chance to do. And we now have photos which reflect the very relaxed and friendly atmosphere of our practice for those who want to decide if we are right for them.

Oh, and I will look ten pounds lighter and two chins fewer in my holiday snaps!