Headshots with a City, Nature or Office background

About our headshots in a city office background

In this section, we will look at headshots with an office background or a city or exterior background.

You can see some examples here. In essence, you can choose to use parts of the interior of the offices or workplace. Perhaps an area that gives a hint of what the company does, or choose an area that reflects well on the company. For instance, maybe an area that looks clean and modern, or colourful and creative, or relaxed and caring? I can of course help you to make these decisions and pick out an area when I’m there.

Another choice would be to use a large window with a view of the city as the background. Or we could photograph people outside? A leafy background or an interesting wall or part of a building.

This type of headshot is still a good option for a small, medium or large company that wants to shoot a number of employees in the same way. If you keep the background the same then you can photograph each person in 10-minute sessions. The setting up time is about 30 minutes. There are only one or two lights needed with this type of set up but time is needed to make the decisions about where to shoot. If you want to keep changing the background, to get variety into the shot then we will need to incorporate extra time needed to move around and set up again.

10 minute slots

The 10-minute slots give me just enough time to relax people, check their appearance (hair, clothes, shiny nose etc..) and give them tips on how to stand, what to do with their hands and talk them through their expressions while photographing them. I take many more shots than you would expect and edit them down later to the ones that work well.

Shots with this type of background have the advantage that they stand out more than the plain background shots, they are a bit different and can reflect your company values more. However, they are perhaps a little bit less flexible in their use than the plain background shots.

Continuity in the images won’t be a problem unless the shots rely heavily on natural light (i.e. they feature or use the light from a window or are shot outside). Then we would be at the mercy of the British weather and the changing light. These shots are also slightly harder to repeat at a later date than the headshots on a plain background as the office may have changed or the weather and light might be different… but this might not be an issue to you.

What you need to think about before the shoot:

The shape the final headshots need to be? Square, landscape or portrait?

How would you like people to come across to reflect well on your company? Here are some keywords you could choose from: friendly, approachable, professional, sensible, serious, caring, creative, joyful, fun….

What to wear? It’s always a good idea to think about a dress code. This of course depends on your company and how you want to come across to your customers. For men, you might want to suggest or stipulate either a suit and tie, a shirt and tie, an open-necked shirt or casual t-shirt/shirt or you might be happy with whatever your employees want to wear. For women, it’s trickier because there is so much more choice for business wear but you could just suggest a level of smartness. Or (for everyone) you could try to incorporate a colour code – like pastel colours, bright colours or neutrals.

Background:

What sort of background are you looking for? How will this reflect on your company?

How many people do you need to be photographed? This will determine how much time I need to do the shoot and hence the costs. If you can provide me with a list of names just before the shoot it’s always helpful, as I can then add people’s name’s to the images later.

Retouching:

How many final images per person will you need? I always recommend only using the retouched images. For each session, you get to pick a certain number of images. However, you can pick more if need be.