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Photography is the seventh standard section. It contains the visual direction for the brand’s imagery: subjects, treatment, lighting, composition, post-production. It also contains the approved gallery, the shot list templates, and the licence and usage terms for every image the brand owns or licenses.

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What lives here

A complete Photography section has six block groups:
  1. The direction. The written brief that describes what the brand’s photography looks like: subjects, environments, mood, lighting register, composition language. Three to five paragraphs, written so a photographer can act from it.
  2. Treatment. Post-production rules: colour treatment, contrast, grain, retouching policy. Specific enough that an editor can match the brand without consultation.
  3. Do and don’t. Pairs of images: photography that is in the brand and photography that is not. The most useful block in the section, because it sets the boundary clearly.
  4. Shot list templates. Repeatable lists for the kinds of shoots the brand commissions: portrait, product, lifestyle, event, environment. Each template covers required shots, optional shots, and constraints.
  5. The approved gallery. A grid of every approved image the brand owns or licenses, with metadata: photographer, date, licence terms, use case, expiry.
  6. Licence and usage terms. A summary of the licence model the brand uses, the rights it holds, the territories and channels permitted, and any model or location release status.

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Who edits this section

The brand owner. Editors with Photography edit rights, often a creative director or art director. MadeBy_ during an engagement. Team members raise Update Requests when they need imagery the gallery does not cover, when a shoot has produced material worth adding, when a licence is about to expire, or when a use case has emerged that the licence does not cover.

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What team members see

The gallery is image-heavy and grid-based. Images are filterable by subject, by date, by licence status, by use case. Each image opens to its metadata. The direction and treatment blocks are scrollable text with reference imagery; the do-and-don’t block is presented as paired thumbnails. Image downloads carry the licence summary in the file name and a downloadable rights sheet.

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How this section changes

Three patterns:
  1. A new shoot is added. The shoot is briefed against the direction and treatment, executed, and the selects are added to the gallery. Metadata is captured at the point of upload, not later.
  2. A licence is about to expire. The image is flagged in the gallery; a renewal decision is made; the image is either re-licensed or retired.
  3. The direction itself shifts. Larger work, often part of a brand evolution. The current direction moves to history; the new direction becomes canonical. The gallery is reviewed and pruned to match.

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Common mistakes

Five mistakes show up repeatedly in Photography sections:
  1. A direction that reads like a mood board. Adjectives without operational meaning. Photographers cannot act from “warm, authentic, evocative.” Write a brief that makes choices.
  2. Treatment rules described without examples. “Subtle grain, restrained colour” looks different to different editors. Show the example; specify the values where they matter.
  3. A gallery without metadata. Images accumulate; nobody can remember who took which one, what licence covers it, or whether it expires next month. Capture metadata at upload.
  4. Licences ignored. The brand uses an image past its licence; the original photographer notices. Licence expiries are calendar events, not “we will check later.”
  5. No do-and-don’t pairs. The team learns what the brand likes but not where the line is. The do-and-don’t block does more work than the rest of the section combined; populate it generously.

Applications

Photography in context.

Voice

The verbal twin.

Social

Photography’s highest-frequency surface.