How to organize successful corporate portrait sessions

In years past, portraits meant stiff board and management team photos in annual reports. Fortunately, the world has changed. Today, images are an essential part of a company's story.

A modern company presents its key people with fresh portraits that convey joy, humanity and personality alongside expertise. Yet the images remain stylistically unified and brand-reinforcing. Unified images with subtle variation create an elegant overall impression of the company. A consistent image selection also makes individual employees' daily work easier.

Portraits make a real difference especially in professional roles. Portraits are used in increasingly diverse ways — on social media, in sales presentations and marketing. Company employees can introduce themselves immediately with their faces in brand-aligned images, whatever the channel or material.

Great images also communicate openness, trustworthiness and employee appreciation. Employees in turn appreciate smart images they can confidently use in different contexts and even in their own LinkedIn profiles. The employer benefits from this too.

The foundation of successful corporate portrait sessions is a jointly developed plan and precise scheduling. If you don't need to renew the entire staff's images right now, smaller sessions can photograph just new employees, for example.

We visit your preferred shooting location in advance. Sometimes we may suggest another shooting location if we know it would fit your company's style perfectly. We handle all arrangements for you.

If you want to organize shoots outdoors, remember a weather contingency. If the weather is terrible, shoots may need to be postponed. Also consider how the environment and season appear in the images. Can the images be used in other seasons too?

Relaxation is good, but still communicate to those being photographed that they are in their work roles in the images. Ensure the shooting space is calm. Then both the photography team and subjects can focus on the shoot in peace. There must also be enough space for lighting the images.

In the same sessions, both basic headshots and environmental portraits can be taken. Images can be enlivened even with subtle environmental details. Perceptions are created from surprisingly small things.

The makeup artist has an important role in shoots. The makeup artist takes care of the subject, makes them feel confident and helps them relax moments before the shoot. Don't skimp on the makeup artist. Post-processing images taken without a makeup artist takes more time and ultimately costs more than the makeup artist.

Rush and photography are a bad combination. Therefore, reserve enough time per subject. The subject doesn't need to rush, and can prepare in a way that suits them, perhaps chatting with the photographer. When the subject is in good spirits, it shows in the images.