Corporate group photo. Laura Sosner Photography Inc. All rights reserved.

This week’s post is about a lovely team of four that I photographed a few weeks back at the studio. The team lead, Jennifer, had reached out because she felt it was time to update her and her team’s online presence. She was looking for headshots that were technically ‘corporate’, but not the type of photography that typically comes to mind when one hears the term ‘corporate headshots’ (i.e., nothing staid or too rigid).

Corporate shoot pre-planning:

I love it when clients come to me and they’ve already got a vision in hand, as was the case with Jennifer. She was drawn to the black and white portraits I had in my portfolio, and right off the bat knew that she’d like to see about 50% of the shoot in black and white. And when she put a mood board together for me (a.k.a., a group of photos from Pinterest to use as general inspiration for the shoot), I saw a recurring colour palette that in turn informed the colour portion of her shoot.

She and I carefully planned out the styling for the group beforehand. It was decided where she was team lead that having her in a light colour and the rest of the team in darker colours would serve to subtly convey that information to the viewer. She was also interested in doing a portion of the shoot in black and white, which was music to my ears! You don’t often see corporate photography in black and white, and in my opinion, that creates an opportunity to do something very memorable- I always tell my clients that it’s good to be aware of what the trends currently are (i.e., colour photography for business branding imagery and headshots) and then if they want to buck the trend they can do so knowledgeably and with purpose. Just look at the following photos of the team.

Corporate photography goes black and white:

The black and white aesthetic is both classic and unique and stands out from traditional ‘corporate headshot photography’, which was exactly our goal.

About half of the headshots from the session were in colour. The goal whether the photos were in black and white or colour, was to convey warmth (in addition to the other aforementioned qualities). And so for some of the headshots, I made the decision to back light them (as in the adjacent example). To keep a nice warm feeling to the aesthetic I put a 1/4 CTO gel on the light which gives the backdrop it’s subtle rose tone.

The takeaway? Corporate photography can be utterly sophisticated…

The big takeaway here in my opinion is that corporate photography has the ability to be as beautiful and interesting and unique as any other genre of portraiture. It’s an area of photography that is becoming increasingly sophisticated because that’s what business people need and deserve in their online presence in 2023.

Is your company looking to update their employee headshots? Or perhaps you’re looking for corporate headshots just for yourself. Whatever photography services you’re seeking, please feel free to reach out and set up a complimentary consultation today.

Sophisticated group corporate headshots

Corporate shoot pre-planning:

Corporate photography goes black and white:

The takeaway? Corporate photography can be utterly sophisticated…