The Brand Edit: Nails by Carla Louise | Branding Photography in North Yorkshire

Nails by Carla Louise exists, in part, because Carla got bored during lockdown.

Which might be one of my favourite beginnings to a Brand Edit story yet.

Before nails, Carla worked as a housekeeper. When Covid hit and she was furloughed, she spotted a competition to win a nail technician course and thought she'd give it a go.

She won.

What started as something completely unexpected has since taken Carla from working within a hair salon, to opening her own space on Commercial Street, and most recently moving into a new salon on Wood Street in Norton.

But perhaps the most interesting part of Carla's story isn't how she started.

It's what happened when she stopped loving it.

Losing the spark

A few years into running her business, Carla realised she'd lost some of her passion for what she was doing.

I think that's something we're sometimes reluctant to admit as small business owners. We're supposed to have found the thing we love and then skip happily into the sunset doing it forever.

Real life doesn't always work like that.

Rather than accepting that feeling, Carla decided to invest heavily in her education. She wanted to understand more, improve her techniques and become completely confident in the service she was offering her clients.

And it changed everything.

Carla told me she used to worry about whether someone's nails would last or whether something might go wrong after they left her chair. Now, she knows the standard of her work. She's proud of the nails her clients leave with and, importantly, she's confident they'll last.

In fact, many of her clients have moved from appointments every three weeks to every four because of the quality and longevity of her work.

That confidence didn't appear overnight.

She earned it.

It's about far more than beautiful nails

One of the things that really stood out when I first sat down with Carla was how passionate she is about standards within the nail industry.

She follows Eastern European standards of quality and hygiene and takes the cleanliness and safety of her salon incredibly seriously. For Carla, it's about knowing that when somebody sits in her chair, they're being properly looked after.

She's now taking that knowledge into another area of the business too: education.

Carla has launched her own training academy and wants to attract students who genuinely want to thrive within the industry. She's passionate about helping them understand that becoming a nail technician isn't simply a quick fix or an easy way to make money. There is skill, knowledge and responsibility behind doing it properly.

And Carla certainly isn't finished learning herself. She's continually expanding her knowledge and has recently completed further pedicure training too.

That was the story I wanted her branding photographs to tell.

What does branding photography show that a picture of nails can't?

One common mistake I see when looking at small business photography is that we're very good at showing the finished result, but not everything that goes into creating it.

A beautiful set of nails shows me what Carla can create. It doesn't show me the hours she's invested in education, her meticulous hygiene standards, the way she teaches a student or the care she gives the person sitting opposite her.

That's where branding photography becomes so much more than simply photographing the thing you sell.

It's something I've noticed throughout The Brand Edit. With Hot Toddi in Malton, it was about showing the personality behind the business.

At The Homestead Kitchen in Goathland, the photographs needed to capture the experience Cecily and Pete had created, not simply the food on the plate.

With This Other Eden in Helmsley, it was important to show Grania amongst the beautiful things she'd chosen for the shop.

And at Apeman Interiors in Nunnington, photographing an antique alone couldn't show Tom's eye, knowledge and craftsmanship.

Carla's story added another layer to that.

Sometimes the most powerful thing you can show isn't your finished work.

It's the care, passion and expertise that goes into creating it.

Creating Carla's branding photographs

Carla's new salon on Wood Street in Norton gave us plenty to work with. It's clean, calm and welcoming, but with plenty of Carla's personality thrown in too. You can't exactly describe a salon with leopard-print wallpaper as boring.

We photographed Carla doing her mum's nails, working alongside Kerry, teaching students, choosing products and interacting naturally within the salon. We created team photographs, portraits and plenty of the smaller behind-the-scenes moments that make up an ordinary working day.

And, of course, Buddy made an appearance.

Buddy is Carla's dog and, depending on who you ask, CEO of Carla Louise Nails. Whenever Carla impulsively buys another collection of colours she absolutely has to have, apparently Buddy authorised the purchase.

Convenient, really. Nobody can tell Buddy off.

The photograph that felt most like Carla

Carla admitted she was nervous about being photographed at first, which won't surprise anyone who's followed my work for a while. I hear it constantly.

So we didn't begin with portraits.

We started with Carla working on her mum's nails. She had something familiar to concentrate on, we chatted as she worked, and gradually the awareness of the camera disappeared.

By the time we moved onto portraits, she'd relaxed and later told me she'd actually enjoyed the session.

But one of my favourite moments came when I asked Carla to put her feet up on the table for a slightly funkier photograph.

Kerry (her colleague) immediately laughed: "Oh my God, that's so Carla."

Apparently Carla is always wandering around in her socks. Carla explained that she likes the feeling of having no shoes on and actually finds it settling.

Later, Stef from Glam and Glossy saw the photograph and said exactly the same thing: that photo was just so Carla.

I loved that.

Because I couldn't have known that when I suggested it.

But somehow we'd created a photograph that the people who know Carla instantly recognised as her.

And to me, that's what good personal branding photography should do.

It shouldn't turn you into a polished version of somebody else. It should give the people who already know you that instant feeling of, "Yep. That's her."

Building trust before someone ever sits in your chair

I've been thinking a lot recently about how people actually decide which small businesses to trust.

Very rarely is it one thing.

It's the recommendation from a friend. The review they read afterwards. The photograph of you on your website. The way you talk about your work. The glimpse behind the scenes. The values you repeatedly demonstrate.

Each one adds another little piece of evidence.

By the time someone finally sends an enquiry, they may already feel as though they know quite a lot about you.

That's why Carla's session wasn't built around simply photographing nails.

It was built around portraying everything she values and believes in: education, high standards, hygiene, attention to detail, personality and genuinely caring about the people who trust her with their nails.

The finished work matters.

But showing people why it's good is where the real story is.

The next chapter for Carla Louise Nails

I drove away from Carla's session thinking what an ambitious young woman she is.

She's already taken a chance on something that began almost accidentally, built a successful business from it, recognised when she'd lost her passion, done something about it, moved premises and started teaching other people everything she's learnt along the way.

And she's still learning.

I think that's perhaps what I admire most.

There isn't a sense that she's reached the point where she knows enough. She's continually asking how she can improve, how she can raise her standards and how she can pass that knowledge onto the students coming through her academy.

The Brand Edit was created to introduce me to businesses exactly like this.

Every month I walk into another business thinking I'm going to photograph what they do, and every month I come away understanding a little more about why they do it.

And that's nearly always where the best photographs are hiding.

Are you a North Yorkshire business owner looking for branding photography that shows more than what you sell?

My branding sessions are built around your business, your personality and the experience you want your customers to understand before they've even met you.

Your photographs shouldn't just show people what you do.

They should help them understand why you're the person they want to do it with. August's Brand Edit is taking me to Angela AKA Fit Happens, I'm so excited to capture her session next week, so watch this space, if you'd like to find out more about Angela's passion, including her training clients from their 20s all the way through to 89.