At Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, we conducted a week-long K–12 brand photo and video shoot to expand our photography and video libraries. HMH uses 95% in-house photography (and a small sprinkling of purchased images), so keeping the image libraries stocked with new assets is imperative—not only to keep the brand messaging fresh, but also to support the marketing team’s goals of increasing awareness of HMH as an EdTech company, expressing HMH’s value proposition, and capturing authentic classroom moments. Additionally, equity and inclusion is something I am very passionate about. When hiring models, I worked with talent agencies to ensure diversity of abilities, body types, genders, and ethnicities were represented.

We were a small but mighty team! In the months leading up to the shoot, I was responsible for leading the development of the shot lists for all shoots. These shot lists were crucial for ensuring we captured imagery that the marketing team needed, but equally to keep art directors on track during a shoot. In addition to shot list development, I coordinated with product marketing to ensure we had appropriate product props, and also developed the list of styling materials needed for each shoot. There were five shoots in total for the various grade ranges, and each shoot had 2–4 locations depending on talent age (Shooting first graders is like herding cats, so you can’t switch it up on them too quickly). I trained the team on the shot lists, assisted in developing the sets, and on shoot week, art directed three of the photoshoots (and even modeled for a shoot so we could have extra teacher models).

We came back from the photoshoot with over 15,000 photos, and over the following month, I led a team of four designers to process the shoots for selects, color correction, logo removal, keyword tagging, and upload to our image server. I also trained the full HMH design team on photoshoot post-production with emphasis on Lightroom.

The shoot was a massive success, ultimately adding just over 1,700 new image assets to our library, and supporting company revenue goals through best-in-class creative and content development.