The Corporate Headshot… the one type of photograph that everyone needs, every company wants, but most don’t give enough thought to.
Headshots are one of the most important images for your brand or your company. Whether it is on your business card, your LinkedIn profile, your website, your social media, it will often be the first contact people will have when they are researching you and what ultimately lead to your potential customer forming an opinion about you or your service/business.
So what is the perfect corporate headshot?
The white background head and shoulders, the ‘in office’ shot backed by a mass of books or pictures or elements to do with your work… the dynamic thinking person pose staring off into the distance…. The list is endless.
The bottom line is the perfect headshot is the one that reflects you and your business’ core values and brand accurately and creates a connection with your customers, clients or audience. If you communicate to multiple different audiences through different channels then you may actually need multiple headshots photographed in a variety of ways.
In order to help you plan, prepare and NAIL your commercial portrait we have listed 10 tips below:
DECIDE WHAT YOU WANT TO ‘VISUALLY SAY’ & WHAT BACKDROP TO CHOOSE:
Sit down and think about what you want to say visually in your corporate image. If it’s a simple case of “here I am, I’m solid, professional and dependable” then it could well be that a straight-forward well posed and lit photograph with a clean and simple background is ideally suitable. But if you need to communicate more about your personality, the type of work you do, or a certain style or flair then think beyond the white background.
Here are some ideas for backgrounds below:
Office backdrops add weight and with the right props can instantly label you in your profession
Soft furnished interior backgrounds, like a home or cafe, can make you feel warm and friendly, almost homely
Interesting architectural angles and structures can give the impression of a structured mind a deep but disciplined thinker
Artwork, sculpted curved lines can give the equal impression of the thinker but with a more creative person
Outdoor nature backdrops can communicate a more open, fresh and vibrant personality
2. GET YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER TO SHOOT TWO DIFFERENT LOOKS TO GIVE YOU OPTIONS:
Often, when we photograph corporate portraiture for clients we shoot a couple of locations or backgrounds to give them options. You will be surprised when you’re given the two options, you may like one over the other or even both. We invariably go to our client’s office and set up a micro studio and shoot a series of standard neutral background colour images, but then expand out to a second location and shoot more in-situ work or outdoor nature style that communicates more about the person, their work and working environment.
3. HAVE THE WHOLE TEAM PHOTOGRAPHED ON THE SAME DAY WITH TIME SLOTS:
To minimise disruptions in the office, we suggest coordinating a day with the whole team to have your commercial portraits. Ideally, our process is to spend a block of time shooting all staff who require headshots rather than piecemeal one or two every now and again. This allows us to be consistent across all images.
4. CHOOSE A COMPLEMENTING COLOUR PALETTE FOR YOUR CLOTHING:
Does your company have any key branding colours? Or you have a certain colour tone that contrasts your background. Putting a logo in your image can sometimes be considered a bit over the top but subtly bringing in a colour palette that is intrinsically linked with your brand can be very powerful.
Alternative to this, we highly suggest going with a neutral or coloured palette of complementing colours. We have given some ideas below.
