Corporate headshots: what a session actually involves

A team shoot is the most logistically constrained thing we do and the least visually complicated. Most of the work is scheduling.

What we need from you

A room, roughly three metres by four, with a plain wall on one side and somewhere to put two lights. A meeting room is ideal. It does not need a window; we bring the light.

Thirty minutes per person, back to back, on a list. Not "whenever they're free" — a booked slot per name, or the day slips by an hour before lunch and never recovers.

One person who knows everyone. Someone has to say "that's not Marc, Marc is in the other room", and it should not be the photographer.

What happens in the thirty minutes

Five minutes of getting comfortable, twenty of shooting, five to choose. We show the frames on a screen at the end and you pick yours — nobody leaves without having seen what they look like, which removes the single most common complaint about corporate portraits.

What to wear

What you actually wear to work, not what you think a portrait requires. Someone photographed in an unaccustomed suit looks exactly like someone photographed in an unaccustomed suit.

Avoid fine stripes and small checks — they shimmer on screen and cannot be fixed afterwards. Solid mid-tones sit best. There is more on this in what to wear.

Matching people who join later

The lighting positions, the distance and the background are recorded at the end of the session. When someone joins six months later, they are photographed into the same set-up and drop into the directory without looking pasted in.

This is the part most teams do not think to ask about and the part that matters most two years in, when half the page was shot at a different time from the other half.

Where

On your premises, in Paris, Lyon, Bordeaux or anywhere else we cover. See corporate headshots for what a session includes.