You’re listening to Allied Health Podcast, talking all things Allied Health with your

hosts Danielle Weedon, Physiotherapist and Clare Jones, Occupational Therapist.

Today we’re joined by Fiona Sexton, a physiotherapist turned professional photographer who now works

exclusively with Allied Health professionals and businesses to elevate their brands through

impactful photography.

Fiona shares her journey from clinician to creative, and we dive into why strong branding

and a consistent visual presence aren’t just nice to have, they’re essential for growth

in today’s competitive allied health sector.

Welcome to Allied Health Podcast, Fiona.

It’s great to have you on the show. Thank you so much for having me. Pleasure to be here.

Today, we’re diving into the importance of professional, personalized photography in

allied health branding and how powerful visual storytelling can benefit not only your

ability to attract clients, but also to build a strong and connected team.

So Fiona, you’ve found your niche as an allied health photographer, but you started out as a physio. What led you from physiotherapy into photography and how did

that transition unfold? Yeah, it’s funny. Growing up teenager, I knew I always wanted to do physio

and that was something I was really projecting through my sort of high school years. I even

had a gap year in England when I was 18,

working at a physio clinic before coming back to Australia and studying physio. And I did that then for the next 20 years or so, working in hospitals, clinics, rehab facilities,

and doing Pilates training as well. But all the while in the background, I was always interested

in photography. It was a creative outlet for me.

And we got to that stage when, you know, three kids and doing all the things.

And I think it just got to the point of, you know, it’s time for a change, something for me.

And decided to study my diploma of photography.

So that sort of ended up, funnily enough, being through COVID.

So I sort of homeschooled three kids and got a

diploma. But then I was coming out the other end going, what do I want to do with this now? Where

do I want to head? And I was leaning into the pathway of branding photography. And that was

an area that appealed to me. I liked that idea of, you know, refreshing websites and socials and

helping people get their online presence. But it actually like when you’re

learning to find clients, it was quite funny. I was literally walking door to door around my local

area. And I happened to be going into some allied health clinics. And I walked into this osteo

clinic and went, Hi, I’m a photographer, would you like some photos, which I now look back on

and go, Oh, my God, I can’t believe I did that. They were like, we were just talking about that.

I went, there you go.

And it’s, that was literally a sliding door moment where I went

and I did the shoot for them, did their headshots.

They had Pilates studio.

I was doing treatment shots and I realized I just knew what I was talking about.

And it was like, this makes sense.

And it was sort of a trickle effect, but I ended up doing some shoots

with some physios, some yoga instructors, some other friends, health coaches.

And it was through some other coaching that people encouraged me to go, why don’t you really just niche into this area?

And it took a bit for me to own that as well.

I was sort of doing it, but I was like, how much are you going to go all in?

Because it’s a bit scary niching sometimes going, you’re not going to have enough clients but you actually have 10 times more um and it really

hones in more on your messaging and what you’re trying to say but I think it was just suddenly

realizing that I have something to offer here and it’s not putting 20 years of experience to

waste it’s actually combining my two interests of photography um and my allied health background

and just helping the people in the industry that I love I like the way you say Fiona that you had

that moment of thinking I actually know what I’m doing here yeah so rather than walking in having

no idea what an allied health practice does you would instinctively know what shots need to be taken

yeah and that’s that’s my what i sort of say is actually my point of difference my superpower

in terms of i know how clinic runs i know how to um go right we’ve got to make this efficient

because you’ve got clients coming in here so we can do treatment over there the other half of your

clients can still be treating we’re going to do this area all right you need to do these movements

these shots but also really honing in because you understand the industry not just physio but also

you know naturopath dietician speeches everything you want something to look genuine and real but

also technically correct so other photographers might just go oh take this picture like but the

hands look funny there or that looks a bit choky, or that looks, you know, where your

hand placement is, you want it to look right, but you want it to look pretty too. So there’s those

little nuances that I can work with. And it’s also just preparing people and talking the language.

And as soon as I say it, you know, oh, I used to be a physio. I always get the head nod. Oh,

suddenly they’re like, oh, you get it. Okay. so now you just start that real easy conversation that

we’re on the sort of same page definitely and in terms of our listeners can you sort of talk a

little bit about why branding and in particular a strong visual presence is so important for our

allied health business today like we talk about client attraction but it’s also important for

recruiting staff isn’t it?

Yeah, absolutely. So your website, your socials and stuff often is the first port of call. So again, whether it’s a client coming in, they might going, oh, what’s it, they might just be Googling

a local area. What’s the one that pops up? And so they’re going, oh, who am I going to be seeing?

Where is it? What do they offer? And you’re getting that first impression of does this person look

professional, approachable? Is the, do they have good sort of facilities or services? And so you’re getting that first impression of does this person look professional approachable is the

um do they have good sort of facilities or services and so you’re looking if they’re

genuinely represented and i think with allied health as well that you want to have images and

you want to be approaching someone or a health professional that you trust and it’s about

building that trust and and empathetic so if you’ve got someone

that’s looking all stuffy and this or unprofessional you’re like i tell these people these

you know personal issues a lot of the time but on that sort of respect as well you’re also looking

at your first impression for recruiting staff so you know again your vibe attracts your tribe

i often say whether it be for your clients,

if you want to attract your ideal clients,

it’s like, what are you putting out there?

But also if you’re wanting to attract your staff,

they’re like, does this look like an enticing place to work?

Is this an professional place to work?

Does it look like they do any other professional development?

Do they look like fun?

I’m going to be spending a lot of my week here.

Is that treatment room look really dingy? And I’m like, so is what is your impression that you’re putting out to the staff

that you’re going to attract them? Um, that again, it looks like an enticing place to work.

And it looks like that vibe that you can actually get along with people. So the balance of the

images on your website and your socials do tell both sides of the story the website is often

this is your about this is who we are this is what we offer but the socials might tell the personality

side of things that again people go oh okay i get what they’re like are they doing lots of

educational posts you know you’re like okay they know what they’re talking about this is and again

from client or staff perspective it’s like okay i like the way

they talk i like the way they project themselves i like the professionalism or that balance of

professional and fun so it just depends you know what what people are looking for and if you’re

looking for a job or looking for somewhere you like you’ve got to be able to imagine yourself

in that space so it’s like i can imagine myself going to that clinic I can imagine myself

doing those Pilates classes there I can imagine myself working in this space so that’s about that

impression that you’re you’re making on your visual side of things yeah my next question Fiona

was going to talk about eye stock um using eye stock photographs and it’s so easy to use iStock photographs.

What are the dangers of that?

And I think you’ve actually just answered that question.

I’ve read some of that stuff.

Yeah.

Look, you can spot stock a mile away for one.

And, look, there will be a time and place for certain things,

like certain images of, like, products or something that you like.

That might be a bit generic of some spiky balls or something like that you know that might be a generic stock

product type of thing but when it comes to people and again you standing out compared to the other

million allied health clinics that are out there what people are craving now is real there’s a lot

of ai there’s a lot of you know this’s a lot of, you know, this generated stuff.

So like you want to show how you’re different.

It’s about showing the people behind the brand and, yeah,

really getting that across.

It’s like this you’re going to be dealing with a real person

and a real human and how do you, you know,

come across and make that different than just going, okay,

I’m going to look at this website and see all these stock images but who are the people I’m seeing and where is it and you want

to know oh that’s the room I’m going into you want to know what to expect and I think that’s around

that sort of stock versus original is actually you know knowing what to genuinely expect when

you’re going to have that experience with that person or business. I know from a recruitment

perspective a big part of deciding whether or not to take a job or not is weighing up a company’s

culture yeah and it can be a difficult thing to do but the first step for us that we advise is to

look at a company’s website yeah and those iStock images they’re just too perfect and too balanced and too they

tick all the boxes and it just gives you no insight no it’s not no heart no feeling no yeah

yeah and you know it might be a really pretty website it looks great but it’s like okay and

then you’ve got one picture of one about page and stuff but again you know when when you have a

really mismatched I know it’s hard when um staff

come and go and it’s hard to sort of keep all that consistent but even just at the simple having a

good about page picture or profile like bad iphone ones or unflattering or up the nose or you know

you want to have something that yeah you like that first port of call is who am i going to be saying

and you know what is there you know who do I look

you know if everyone has if there’s three or four conditions which one will I choose or

you know based on their profile and their experience and it’s like oh I could talk to

that person but um yeah it’s just stand out and in terms of recruitment that you know employers

are finding it so hard to find good you know to find good allied health staff at the moment so

if you’re you know if they’re looking for good OTs physios speeches naturopaths dietitians whatever

they anyone that’s going to look at a website is going to go I really want to work with that person

on that team or it’s just so much more personal than I still and I think a lot of people now

also starting to do which which I’ve loved is some

video, like testimonials or like a video about Paige. So it might be like, hi, I’m Fiona and I

love, you know, drinking coffee and dancing on the weekends. But I also, my favorite, you know,

area I love to treat is this, or this is my area of expertise. If you have these issues, you know,

come and see me. My, you know, and then they can talk through their specialties. So you get to know

a bit about their personality, but also, oh, I love doing ACL rehab, or I love working with sports

people or vestibular or all that sort of stuff. So, you know, that’s another way that you can

have your images, but you could also use video as a personal way again for recruitment or for clients for client attraction yeah

in terms of branding challenges what what are some of the common struggles you see allied health

professionals facing when it comes to branding and marketing and how how do you support them in

overcoming some of these challenges it’s just all the things

because again you were you were taught to be a professional you weren’t taught to be a business

person and that’s something i think people really struggle with when they go oh yeah okay oh oh i’m

a physio now i’m ot now and then they might work in hospitals or whatever go all right i’m going

to go out into private practice you’re like oh there’s all this other stuff i didn’t know all

these other stuff it’s like you need to go and get a business degree on top of, you know, your professional degree. So trying to do all that,

you know, trying to be everything where you’re not expected to be everything. You’re not expected to

be a branding expert. You’re not expected to be a marketing expert and you’re not expected to be a

photographer. So certain of these things is actually, you know, outsourcing and getting

someone to help you, um, and guide you and support you so you can get back to doing the things that you’re good at

and that you love and your actual profession.

And I think the thing that people struggle with as well is just

they don’t know where to start.

And then so then they don’t do anything.

And then sort of just freeze and go, okay, it’s a minefield

or even you’re like looking for a photographer.

That’s really challenging because you go, okay, oh, I need to get photos.

What am I going to do?

Oh, Google photographer near me and then you open up wedding photographer family photographer and then

you’re in a mind field of is that the person are they going to understand and that is just wasting

so much time so you know just come to me the people that work in allied health and just you

know understand that sort of industry and i think a lot of people also just

hate putting themselves out there yeah they hate photos and videos and it’s very common it’s not

just in allied health it’s honestly about 90 of the people um yeah i hate doing but that’s something

that i really help people all the way with is this the guidance and the confidence around um

being on camera there’s lots of prompting and there’s heaps of planning before a shoot.

A lot of work goes into before the shoot.

The actual shoot day is the fun bit.

All the other stuff is actually getting people

to really think about what they want, what they need,

what are they projecting, what is their staff requirements,

their props, you know, there’s a lot that goes on

and that is what will really then set people up.

When you’ve planned before, you know where you’re heading in your strategy and then that goes on. And that is what will really then set people up. When you’ve planned before,

you know where you’re heading in your strategy.

And then that really helps.

When you’ve got your final product of your photo and video,

you’re like, oh, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.

Then it’s like, you’ve still got to do the work

with some of the marketing stuff,

but you can use your photos on your emails,

on your newsletters, on your blogs, on your website,

on your marketing brochures, on your LinkedIn. There’s so many ways to use them and I will educate people about that as well so it’s

not just about your about page and a few social media posts there’s tons of ways to use your

images so it’s so much value getting this bank of images that you can use for so much of your

marketing so when you first meet with a client Fiona is it your expectation is that you can use for so much of your marketing so when you first meet with a client

fiona is it your expectation is that you’ll probably have a group of people that want to

shy away from from the camera and you’ve got a number of strategies in place to make make our

health professionals in particular feel confident in front of the camera and you know what i think

again it comes down to 20 plus years of experience of working with people is I know how to read the room.

And it’s not just about the professionals or confidence.

It’s about who are the extroverts, who are the introverts, who are the ones that like this, who don’t.

Some people might warm up and need a bit of coaching.

Some people might be so excited and anxious that they’re all over the top.

And I’m like, calm down, calm down.

So it’s about knowing how to read people’s sort of energies and stuff like that but yeah there’s always the expectation goes you know make me

look five kilos longer and get rid of my wrinkles and everyone will say that everyone gets a bit of

a zhuzh like let’s just say that I’m not going to make them not look like you my photography’s all

around being natural and real yep so it’s just you know a bit of skin brightening and all that

sort of stuff um but everyone still looks like themselves it’s not airbrushed it’s just, you know, a bit of skin brightening and all that sort of stuff. But everyone still looks like themselves.

It’s not airbrushed.

It’s not fake.

And that whole thing is about being real and natural and just, and that’s my style of photography is there.

So I, look, we just laugh.

You know, what we’re doing now is basically what it’s like on a photo shoot.

I’ll just be chatty, you know, have a bit of a play just

to make it lighthearted because it’s usually those moments

between the moments when you get the best shots.

So I might get people to laugh or do something silly

and that’s when you get the twinkle in the eye

because the moment you lift the camera,

people look like a deer at headlights and then you just say something

and you get them to laugh or you got someone behind you distracting you and then yeah then

you get the twinkle in the eye and the fun and I always show people photos along the way so they

can see oh like that or don’t like that and so then when I’m asking them to pose in this particular

way I’m like this is because it’s flattering for X, Y and Z.

Then they’re like, oh, okay, I see.

And it just gives reassurance along the way to go, oh,

actually I look all right.

I think a big step as well, Fiona, in terms of making your staff feel

comfortable enough to have photos and videos taken is actually

getting a professional in to take photos because that gives them

the confidence to say,

right, these, these photos are going to look good where the temptation would be. We’ll,

we’ll just, we’ll just snap a few photos off a knife. But there’s so much more to bringing out

like that, that naturalness in people. There’s so much more behind that, isn’t there?

And it depends on the type of shoot.

So, look, I can, you know, use hair and makeup people if they’re wanting that as well.

So sometimes, you know, when you’ve got like a big sort of,

say, physio clinic shoot, it’s not really the look, you know,

it’s the polo t-shirt brigade and it’s not about being all glam.

But if you’ve got people that are maybe like a psychologist

in a small clinic and they’ve,

you know, got their very professional look in this beautiful aesthetic place and they’re like,

right, I want to be having hair and makeup and stuff like we can arrange that as well. So

it just depends. We work out what’s going to suit your clinic beforehand, whatever’s going to help

build confidence and we go from there. Yeah. So that brings us to your sort of services and the packages on offer. Can you tell our

listeners a bit more about the types of photography packages you offer, like who they’re best suited

to, solo practitioners, clinics, larger organisations? Yeah. So I’ve got a range of

packages that basically start from like a one hour, what I call brand essential shoot all the

way to a sort of full shoot, full day shoot and sort of beyond. So on our like discovery call,

we first chat, I find out about your business, how many staff you have, what you’re actually

looking for, and then we can see which of these packages sort of suit you the best. So yeah,

the brand essentials is a one hour shoot and it’s often suited to those solo professionals or someone that just needs a bit of a refresh, say, between shoots.

Yeah, the solo professionals, like in that one hour,

we can still do headshots and lifestyle shots, a few clinician stuff.

But once you get more clinicians, it’s probably best to move

into the next package, which is my brand elevation package,

which is a half-day shoot. And we get a ton of

content there so that you can still have, I had a client the other day that was actually

on a solo business and they did a half day shoot. It was a dietitian and yeah, so she did some stuff

in studio. We did bed some other locations actually at like a Greengrocer at a park as well.

So it might just sort of depend on what you’re doing but yeah for just say if a multi-disciplinary clinic i would usually say at least the brand elevation shoot

which is a half day or then we can go on to a full day shoot so that would be like up to sort of six

hours as well so there is options for video packages sort of within this so um i’m working

on some social media content packages at the moment.

And then for the bigger shoots, some high-end videos that you’ll have more as an introduction on your website.

Usually that walkthrough, hi, welcome to such and such.

This is what we offer.

So, again, there’s the three main packages and we can tweak the video and stuff depending on what your needs are, whether you’re wanting B-roll, social media content,

all that sort of stuff under guidance.

And we can just knock it out in an hour, like within that half day shoot,

or whether you’re looking for them, right,

this is the more high-end video that you want.

So there’s a few sort of ways to see what’s going to work best for you.

But the best things to do is just book a call and we um

then we’d have a chat and sort of figure out where you fit in what your needs are and go from there

but everyone that books in a shoot will get my ultimate planning guide which again helps

build confidence and guide them about everything they need to do to help prepare a what to wear

guide and also to a guide about

preparing a run sheet and shot list. Cause that’s like my big thing. You need to have

your shot list and run sheet there ready to go. Cause all of that preparation will

make the shoot day run smoothly. And then with regards to video, I’ve got some other like

prompts and tips and a video confidence blueprint guide that, again, is just building that confidence before the shoot.

So when it comes to shoot day, everyone’s prepared,

knows what they need to do, where they need to be,

and then that’s when I can just be directing and making it fun

and, you know, the planning bit’s all done,

then we can get in and get as much content for them in that time

and make it the most useful for everyone.

Yeah, and it also means minimal disruption to your business as well.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

So it’s all about talking about that because some people are like, right,

for you to shut down your business for a couple of hours, you know,

you need to make it worth your while.

So I’m like let’s be, I don’t want to waste half of your time

by cleaning your treatment room.

So I’m very clear about decluttering, getting this organised,

getting that out of the way because I don’t want to be coming

and going, like I still might have to go, you know,

get the bin out or do a few things there.

But I’ll be like, okay, you don’t want to waste half your time

going move this, move that.

But like if you can prepare that all beforehand

and the clinics and the people that do that makes

a massive difference on the day.

Like with getting the flow, getting the shots done with minimal disruption to your workplace.

And Fiona, what’s the best way for people to get in touch with you?

Yeah, just head to my website and then fionasextonphotography.com.au

and, yeah, book a call.

That’s the best thing.

There’s lots of information.

You can see examples of my galleries.

You can download that ultimate planning guide as

well that’s on the website if you just want to have a look and you know get some preparation

before going ahead but the best thing to do is just book a call and then we can have a chat just

like this find out about your business what you need where you’re wanting to head and work out

the strategy and a shoot that will best um suit you excellent and they can follow you on insta

can’t they absolutely follow me on insta can’t they absolutely

follow me on insta that’s again that’s a personality side of things that’s when you get to

know me and oh you know me talking in my car and stuff uh on the way to a shoot on the way

yeah um yeah so that’s that’s when you get the you know the real stuff you get lots of behind

the scenes as well you can see other sort of sites types of shoots I’ve done some educational sort of

stuff in there as well and yeah it’s great thank you so much for joining us Fiona it’s been lovely

to chat to you and hearing your insights about how real professional photography can make such

difference in the allied health you know business space and yeah thanks for thanks for joining us

absolutely thank you very much for having me very much appreciate it Fiona you know, business space. And yeah, thanks for joining us. Absolutely.

Thank you very much for having me.

Very much appreciated.

Thanks, Fiona.

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