Approaches To Making Portraits & Headshots

Approaches To Making Portraits & Headshots

by William Lulow

In a blog article from last December, I spoke about how it is possible for some photographers to get into a rut using the same lighting techniques when working in a small studio, shooting the same kinds of headshots day after day. Many photographers get in the habit of setting their lights up a certain way in order to be able to shoot as many people as possible in the course of a working day. Although I have used that system when I’m doing corporate portraits on location in one company, I know that they will be using my images on their website. So, I want all of them to have the same “look and feel.” This may be the ONLY way to do this successfully in the shortest amount of time and it works beautifully. It also can save clients a considerable amount of money over sending each employee separately, to the studio.  I have sometimes been able to shoot between thirty and forty people in the course of a working day and provide great looking images of any corporate staff.

When I am working for one single individual who is a member of a company, however, I like to see, before I shoot, how the others in the firm were photographed, so that I can provide a similar image that will fit in with the others. In addition, I like to provide the client with totally different images that they can use separately from the website as well. I recently had to do this with one client. I noticed that a number of images of other people were taken outdoors. One reason for this is that the company really didn’t hire one photographer to shoot all their employees, but asked each employee to provide his or her own pictures. Many just went outside and took selfies. So, I took my subject outdoors  and photographed him in the studio as well. But I was able to make much more than a selfie:

This image was made with my long telephoto lens and a portable flash fitted with a bounce umbrella. It has the same quality of all my studio images. Here is one shot from the studio part of the session:

Here is the boss’ shot from the company website:

It would have been better had I been able to use the company’s location, but it wasn’t possible for this shoot. (Notice that the plaid jackets were similar, though). For this company, the concept for their website was good, but the execution of the images could have been much better.

Many companies, as I mentioned, often ask their employees to send pictures of themselves for the company’s website. This usually results in kind of a hodgepodge of images which bare no resemblance to each other and therefore, tend to dilute the message of the corporate entity as a whole. I have photographed the staffs of many corporations and provided them with images of all their staff members so that they fit seamlessly into their website design. I am also able to do regular studio shots combined with any “on location” photographs so that clients can get many uses from one photo session.

It’s sometimes hard to convince clients to spend the money necessary to get real quality headshots and portraits, but it often is worth the money spent in order to achieve a unified and impressive website. Also, many people can be convinced to work with a company solely based on how their employees look on the website. It’s certainly worth it for a company to put as much thought into their web presence as they can.