Portrait Photography Psychology: Putting Clients at Ease with Milena Perdriel

There is nothing natural about having your picture taken. Faced with “this huge eye” that is the lens, most people tense up, especially when they've come for a professional headshot they've been putting off for months. For Milena Perdriel, technique isn't enough: a good photoshoot is won before the first click of the shutter, in the way you prepare, welcome and guide your client.

Talking with Mathieu Vitrat, photographer and podcaster at Fotostudio, she explains why she approaches corporate and personal portraits the same way, the question she asks every client, why she'd rather photograph teenagers than babies, and how Moment Design works, the method she teaches photographers to bring psychology into their sessions.

Who is Milena Perdriel?

Milena Perdriel is a portrait photographer and trainer for photographers. At the time of recording, in spring 2021, she was working from a studio in Montmartre, Paris, which she shared with a wedding and portrait photographer who was about to retire.

• Background: she grew up in Bulgaria, studied French and Bulgarian linguistics, and taught French at a bilingual high school at the age of 20, as a three-month substitute.
• 2012: full-time photographer in Montmartre, working in the studio for private and business clients.
• Corporate portraits: she got into them “by chance”, and they now make up most of her sessions in number.
• Trainer: she teaches the Moment Design method (she was one of its two certified trainers in France), corporate portraits and personal branding, through workshops and one-to-one coaching.

Today, her website milenap.com (in French) presents Studio MilenaP, based in Niort, in western France: personal portraits (families, maternity, individual portraits), corporate portraits and personal branding for entrepreneurs and companies, as well as training, video lessons and coaching for photographers.

1. Corporate or personal portraits: should you change your approach?

Mathieu expects two different methods. Milena disagrees right away: to her, they are the same people, and she approaches them the same way. What changes is the starting point, and therefore the questions she asks as “captain of the ship”.

“With corporate, they have a need. With personal portraits, they have a wish.”

Milena Perdriel

The corporate client who comes “because they have to”

A corporate portrait meets a communication need: saying something through an image. But clients rarely come with a light heart. They're often “backed into a corner”: their employer wants a photo, someone told them their old one wasn't good, or it's ten years old. The worst case, according to Milena, is when they need it for the next day: the whole preparation phase is lost. The notable exception is solo entrepreneurs, who know that they are their brand and show up full of ideas and enthusiasm.

To avoid rushed sessions, offer a preparation slot as soon as the session is booked: an online booking tool lets clients pick their own date, early enough to leave time for a conversation before the shoot.

To dig deeper into this market, Amélie Marzouk explains in her episode on working as a corporate photographer how she moved from family photography to business portraits.

2. How do you prepare a client for a photoshoot?

Milena describes herself as “very chatty” and, above all, very curious about people and what they do for a living. She gets her clients talking, even the shy ones: when you know how to ask questions, everyone ends up talking about themselves. And she shares with listeners the question that unlocks most corporate sessions.

The “dot, dot, dot” question

Imagine that someone who doesn't know you, a future client or partner, comes across your photo and thinks: “I'd love to work with her, she's...”. What do you put in place of the dots? Enthusiastic, calm, thoughtful, a good listener, modern, dynamic: all of this can show in a portrait, as long as you know what you want to show. People know who they are and what sets them apart, but most of them have never put it into words.

“All of these things can actually be seen in a portrait. You just need to know what you want to show.”

Milena Perdriel

A question like this works best when sent before the session, so the client can think about it calmly. A pre-session questionnaire sent automatically after booking lets you collect their answers, wishes and constraints before they even walk through the studio door.

Getting permission to come in

Mathieu, a wedding photographer, sees it in documentary work: a session is won once people have let you into their personal space. Milena goes further: if she isn't let in, she “feels like she's being punished”. That's why she insists on preparation time. You don't know each other, so you can't ask someone to “give the most precious part of themselves” the moment they arrive. Her role is to be the person who helps them see that what they gave is beautiful.

3. What makes a good portrait?

Milena tested it on herself. For a self-portrait competition, she organized a shoot with two friends, a stylist and a hairdresser. They had fun “like kids”: five sets, with careful makeup and outfits. The result: disappointing photos. Looking back, she realized she hadn't given the photo any time: her attention was on the outfit, the makeup and the team, not on the exchange with the camera.

“It takes time to give something of yourself to this kind of huge eye.”

Milena Perdriel

A photo that speaks to you

Asked “what is a good photo?”, Milena starts by admitting she has no idea. She's noticed that her favorite photos, the ones her clients love too, sometimes get three likes, while images that move her less get fifty. That makes sense: only she and her client know what happened in that moment, and the moment doesn't necessarily show. Sometimes you get everything, the moment and an image everyone likes. Not always. Her definition: a photo that speaks to you, that you like, that intrigues you, or even disturbs you.

4. How do you photograph teenagers?

Milena doesn't promote sessions with young children. Babies “are like cats”: cute, but not much interaction. She enjoys photographing children on their own, for their honest and funny reactions, but conflicts between parents and children throw her off: she wants to step in, and that's not her role. She still accepts these families, she just doesn't try to attract more of them.

Being the neutral adult they can talk to

Teenagers, on the other hand, fascinate her: they have questions, they don't feel listened to, and she can be a neutral adult for them. She remembers a ninth-grade intern whose mother answered every question during the consultation. During the session, Milena simply asked her what her favorite TV shows were, and became “her best friend”.

Teenagers in 2021 photographed themselves morning, noon and night with their smartphones. Images had become so commonplace for them that they almost rejected aesthetics altogether. In front of a real photographer, the stakes become huge: it's hard to get them into the studio, but once they're there, “they give everything”.

5. What is the Moment Design method?

A photographer friend who trains photographers brought her into professional photography training in France, with the Moment Design method, of which they were then the only two certified trainers. Milena has taught it ever since, alongside corporate portraiture. The principle: the photographer is the “designer” of the moments clients will experience during the session. The method has four steps.

The four steps of Moment Design

• 1. Intention: the photographer's own psychology. Before welcoming the client, you set aside the flat tire or the child who cried that morning to make room for the people arriving.
• 2. Welcome: before the session even starts, how do you show you're there for them? The way you say hello, offer a coffee or a glass of water, the energy you give off when you open the door. Perception goes through every sense: smell, touch, sight.
• 3. Invitations: the visible tip of the iceberg. All the interactions during the session that lead people to do what serves the photo, and what makes them feel good.
• 4. Expressing an emotion: an emotion comes like a wave, it rises, peaks, then falls. Some are beautiful before the peak, others at the top, others after. That's where the photographer's skill comes in.

“I'm the designer of the moments people will experience during the photoshoot.”

Milena Perdriel

Becoming aware of what happens anyway

All of this happens in any session. The value of the method, according to Milena, is to become aware of it so you can act on it. Each photographer then applies it in their own way: the same couple, photographed by three photographers, will have three different sessions. In workshops, the models say so themselves: “it's amazing how different each of you is”.

A powerful photo isn't necessarily Moment Design, either. In wedding photojournalism or street photography, the photographer knew how to be present and capture the moment, but didn't cause what happened. Moment Design is precisely about the photographer's responsibility for what happens in front of the lens.

6. Should you direct your clients or let them be?

For Milena, it's a choice, and there's no wrong answer as long as you own it. Documentary photographers, whether they cover events, weddings or families, choose not to step in. She chooses to step in, then to step back far enough to document what she sees: posing people for a natural result.

“I love photographing people with their feet planted on the ground and their arms hanging loose.”

Milena Perdriel

Every photographer attracts clients who are like them

To her, these simple, almost still portraits are disarmingly powerful, because everyone stands like that at some point in their life. Other photographers do the exact opposite. A photographer friend of hers, uncomfortable with intimacy and tears, keeps her clients moving and jumping around, and it works, because it's who she is. The result: she attracts clients who are ready to jump around, and Milena attracts clients who are ready to hug. And it's your photography website, your words and your images that do this sorting before the first contact.

“On a scale of 1 to 10, how touchy-feely are you?”

That's the question Milena asks couples and families to know how far she can go: can she ask them to put their arms around each other, to hold each other tight? Everyone has a different comfort level with physical contact, and knowing it before the session avoids making people uncomfortable.

7. What is the photographer's responsibility?

Milena became interested in personal branding as soon as she started out. Most photographers are solo entrepreneurs: it makes sense for everything to reflect who they are, their words, their images, their offers and the clients they target. That's what she works on with them in one-to-one coaching, just as she does with her corporate clients.

Peter Lindbergh's lesson

To wrap up, Milena talks about the workshop she attended in 2018 with Peter Lindbergh, who has since passed away. From the preparation questionnaire onward, he spoke about the photographer's responsibility: how you look at your clients, how you photograph them, how you talk about them. Because images last and are passed down through generations, you need to look beyond what's being asked for today. Clients often don't know what they want, and the photographer can stand up for values.

“Photographers, let's take responsibility, because we touch people. Each of us in our own way.”

Milena Perdriel

That responsibility extends all the way to delivery: presenting the images in a polished online gallery, rather than a plain download link, is also part of how you tell your clients' stories.

This episode was recorded in spring 2021, in the middle of the pandemic. At the time, Milena Perdriel was working in Montmartre and finishing a book on corporate portraits for photographers; her current studio and work are presented on her website.

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FAQ: portrait photography psychology