How to plan a corporate portrait session for your company.
Planning a corporate portrait session with us involves several key steps to ensure everything runs smoothly. Here's a guide from us to help you plan and consider for your session.
Purpose of portraits
Having a clear defined objective on how the photographs will be used is your most important consideration as they affect the location, resolution, cropping and artistic direction of how the shoot will be conducted
Style of portraits
As professional photographers, our studio is well-known for our editorial & film-like approach to photographing corporate headshots. Should you appreciate our approach, we will be very happy to give our thoughts on style, colour, image formats and locations to ensure the best possible results. For companies with an enforced corporate portrait guideline, check with us to see if this is something we can emulate as factors including lighting, lenses and location will affect the eventual outcome.
Scheduling & Timing
For teams with a larger headcount, we will suggest splitting our session into two or more consecutive dates based on half-day (04 hours) or full-day sessions (08 hours).This is helpful in allowing team members to choose a better slot in case of absence due to leave or other duties. In terms of timing, we will always suggest a morning beginning at 10am and our team will be on-location an hour earlier to ensure everything is properly prepared for your session.
For shoots involving lesser people (usually C-level, management teams), we usually cater more time per individual as they usually require more than your standard "business headshot”. Please check with us so we can advise on the required time needed based on your needs.
Wardrobe & Makeup
For companies with a corporate brand colour, you might want to request for team members to accent their attire with similar colour tones. For example, a blue tie or blue pocket square or scarf. This allows some form of consistency without having everyone to wear a specific colour unless required by your brand. Our studio manager will also prepare an attire and preparation guide to give you a detailed outline of what will work best for photoshoots. All this will be helpful to ensure your team look their best for the corporate photoshoot.
Makeup and Styling can be included depending on your needs. It is commonly requested when photographing management-level executives to ensure the best representation. We have an in-house team of more than ten makeup artists which allows us to support your styling needs.
Communicating with your team
Once the dates have been scheduled, we encourage all our clients to inform photoshoot participants on the shoot dates along with a reminder set for two days prior to the event. You never know when someone might overlook the session in the midst of a busy work schedule.
Confirming with our studio manager
Our studio team will always prepare a formal confirmation email to inform clients that everything is in order but it is always prudent to send an email to check in case there might be a lapse in communication.
Preparing the location
Our default practice is to do a location scout to determine the best possible spaces for your corporate photoshoot. This involves finding places with power-outlets and suitable environmental lighting to enhance the mood of your images. Unless photographing at our studios, we would advise our clients to prepare the shooting location one day prior to the shoot. This usually entails arranging furniture neatly or keeping office desks tidy to ensure everything in frame looks appropriate for the shoot.
Shoot-date namelist
A name list of everyone to be photographed is crucial in helping us register and conduct the session flawlessly. This should include the names, designation, contact and if probable, the order of appearance for the shoot. Having a name list also allows us to counter-check who has been photographed and who to reschedule if necessary due to unforeseen absence.
That’s it! I hope the above information can assist you in preparing for your next photoshoot with us. We look forward to being of service.
The Pentaprism Team
