Corporate headshots

A single corporate headshot costs one appointment and one set-up, and the set-up is the expensive part. So from about six people onwards it becomes markedly cheaper for us to come to the office than to book everyone individually: the same rig, the same wall, the same light, and ten minutes a head. A team of twenty is then half a day. What is needed is a room of roughly four by three metres with one clear wall — windows are welcome but not required.

The real reason to do a team together, though, is not price but consistency. A team page carrying five photographs from five years against five different backgrounds looks disordered however good the individual frames are. Fifteen retouched photographs per person, one neutral background and one environmental, square and 4:5 crops for profiles, files within 48 hours.

For a team session at your office, the preparation on your side decides how smoothly the half-day runs. It helps to have a list of names in ten-minute slots, a room nobody else has booked for the duration, and a short email telling colleagues what to wear — consistent in formality rather than in colour. Anyone who is ill or on holiday that day can be photographed later. So that their frame still matches the set, the set-up, distances and light positions are recorded at the first session, and new starters can be added the same way months afterwards.

Corporate headshots are a commercial commission, and the rights of use cover the purpose named in the written confirmation. So list everything the photographs are for when you enquire: the website, LinkedIn, press releases, the annual report, recruitment ads. Team photographs add an obligation that sits with the employer: publishing staff photographs requires each person’s consent, ideally in writing and before the shoot. For a team the quote is worked out from the headcount and the time slots; for one person the starting price applies. Either way you have the figure in writing before booking and it does not move afterwards. If more people need photographing than planned, that is priced before it happens rather than added to the invoice later.