Business photo session — how to take a business photo for companies and the self-employed | Articles | Photo, video, optics

A beau­ti­ful pic­ture is impor­tant to the con­sumer. It draws atten­tion to a ser­vice or per­son, encour­ages the pur­chase of a prod­uct. There­fore, a busi­ness pho­to shoot for men and women is very impor­tant if they want to pro­mote their brand, adver­tise ser­vices or prod­ucts, be the face of their com­pa­ny. We talk about how to hold a cool pho­to shoot in a busi­ness style in this mate­r­i­al.

Styl­ish pic­tures can be added to social net­works, to a web­site, placed in a resume. Pho­to: news.blr.com

Why do you need a busi­ness pho­to shoot?
Loca­tion selec­tion
Busi­ness pho­to ses­sion in the stu­dio
With a sin­gle col­or back­ground
In the inte­ri­or
Shoot­ing in the office
Busi­ness pho­to ses­sion in nature
How to choose an image for a man and a woman for a busi­ness pho­to shoot
How to pose cor­rect­ly
Schemes for shoot­ing a busi­ness pho­to shoot

Why do you need a business photo shoot?

• Tell us about your­self (as an own­er or spe­cial­ist).
• Declare your com­pa­ny, show your employ­ees.

The result­ing images are used for:

• fill­ing the site, social net­works;
• cre­at­ing brand­ed post­cards, notepads, mag­nets and oth­er com­pa­ny prod­ucts;
• sum­ma­ry;
• launch adver­tis­ing cam­paigns.

Location selection

Business photo session in the studio

It can be done in a pho­to zone with a uni­form back­ground or in an inte­ri­or (a loca­tion styl­ized as an office).

With a single color background

The eas­i­est option. It is enough to put a pho­to­phone, light, a chair (if nec­es­sary) to con­duct a busi­ness pho­to ses­sion in the stu­dio.

Suit­able if you need to:

• a small num­ber of shots (there is only one loca­tion, so it is dif­fi­cult to take many dif­fer­ent shots);
• a pho­to ses­sion of com­pa­ny employ­ees (for exam­ple, to post a pho­to on a web­site). In this case, you can gen­er­al­ly use a com­pa­ny pho­to­phone (if any) with a print­ed logo.

On a plain back­ground, you can take sev­er­al frames for a resume or web­site. Pho­to: i.pinimg.com

The advan­tages of such a busi­ness pho­to shoot in the stu­dio:

• fast (one loca­tion, not many options for pos­es);
• you can imme­di­ate­ly set the light (we will talk about the schemes below) and take turns tak­ing pic­tures of a lot of peo­ple. You don’t have to set it up every time.

Ben­e­fits for the cus­tomer:

• low­er cost than long-term shoot­ing in a spe­cial loca­tion or in the office;
• you can quick­ly take a series of pic­tures to update the pho­to on the site.

Most often this is a restrained por­trait shoot­ing. But if you want to make it a lit­tle more inter­est­ing, you can use col­or fil­ters. About how to use them and in what schemes, they told in the blog.

In the interior

You can make a more artis­tic and inter­est­ing por­trait in a loca­tion that is cor­rect­ly styl­ized. It is impor­tant that it fits the image that needs to be con­veyed. The eas­i­est way is to choose a stu­dio with a neu­tral design: plain walls, large win­dows, high chairs, an arm­chair or sofa, a cof­fee table. To be able to take sev­er­al indi­vid­ual and group shots.

Here you can make a pho­to ses­sion in busi­ness style for:

• office work­ers;
• com­pa­ny man­age­ment;
• pro­fes­sion­als who want to sell a prod­uct or ser­vice. For exam­ple, for a blog, social net­works, a con­fec­tion­er’s web­site. It is not nec­es­sary to do a pho­to shoot in the shop. You can make beau­ti­ful por­traits for the con­fec­tion­er him­self and shoot him along with the prod­ucts. The pic­tures will turn out not so restrained and more inter­est­ing than in the pre­vi­ous ver­sion.

For such shoot­ing, a loca­tion with an imi­ta­tion of the work­space is suit­able. For exam­ple, there is a desk­top, an arm­chair. Or a cof­fee table, sofa, lap­top. Pho­to: edwardbaumann.com

Shooting in the office

This idea for a busi­ness pho­to shoot is suit­able if:

• I want to save mon­ey, not rent a stu­dio. But it is impor­tant to sen­si­bly eval­u­ate the loca­tion itself — the ren­o­va­tion, the amount of nat­ur­al light, the size of the room. Shoot­ing in small dark rooms will be prob­lem­at­ic. If the room is small and there is not enough light in it, you can use a pho­to umbrel­la. There will be too much light from the soft­box. You can also point a cam­era flash at a ceil­ing or white wall to get bounced light;
• this is its own pro­duc­tion and the loca­tion is real­ly inter­est­ing. For exam­ple, this is a work­shop for the pro­duc­tion of leather goods. The work­shop itself is clean, there is a lot of space, there are inter­est­ing process­es that can be cap­tured. If this is not the case, it is bet­ter to shoot the own­er, the crafts­men, togeth­er with the prod­ucts, in a stu­dio with a suit­able inte­ri­or.

This is an oppor­tu­ni­ty to show a per­son in a work­ing envi­ron­ment, to con­vey the atmos­phere of the com­pa­ny.

If the office is large, bright, with a good repair, you can hold a pho­to ses­sion and make busi­ness por­traits for employ­ees here. You can also take good group shots, show spe­cial­ists at work, dur­ing plan­ning meet­ings, etc. Pho­to: vasinok.hu

Business photo session in nature

Rare sce­nario. It is rel­e­vant if you need to save as much as pos­si­ble (in a stu­dio, for exam­ple), and the office is not at all suit­able for shoot­ing or it does not exist. For exam­ple, if the client is a self-employed free­lancer. If you need to hold a busi­ness pho­to ses­sion in the fresh air, it is bet­ter to fol­low the basic tips for shoot­ing out­doors:

• choose the right equip­ment (often a tri­pod and a reflec­tor are enough);
• shoot in the morn­ing or in the after­noon. Since an active sun at its zenith can form very sharp, dark shad­ows, these pho­tos are more dif­fi­cult to process. It is bet­ter to pre­fer a time of day with soft light (cloudy weath­er or morn­ing / evening hours);
• care­ful­ly choose a place and idea for a busi­ness pho­to shoot. For exam­ple, to hold it not in a park, but in a more suit­able loca­tion — against the back­drop of a busi­ness cen­ter, office build­ings.

You can read more about the secrets of shoot­ing out­doors in our blog.

You can make a pho­to ses­sion in a busi­ness style not only in the stu­dio, but also on the street. Pho­to: photoshootpos.blogspot.com

How to choose an image for a man and a woman for a business photo shoot

A busi­ness por­trait is not only a pho­to ses­sion in a clas­sic suit. There are 4 pop­u­lar sce­nar­ios:

- clas­sic ver­sion - all in for­mal suits, loca­tion — office or its imi­ta­tion;

- less con­ser­v­a­tive optionwhen every­one can dress in casu­al style. For exam­ple, you can put on sneak­ers under trousers, put on a cropped or fit­ted jack­et instead of a clas­sic one, and under it not a shirt, but a plain T‑shirt. Any loca­tion is suit­able;

- infor­mal ver­sion. Each employ­ee of the com­pa­ny can come to the pho­to ses­sion in what­ev­er he wants. In this case, you can shoot on the street, since a strict office loca­tion is not need­ed;

- the­mat­ic. When every­one is dressed in the same style. For exam­ple, cof­fee shop employ­ees put on their uni­forms. The loca­tion is either neu­tral, or the work­place itself.

A for­mal suit is not required for a busi­ness pho­to. In casu­al style, you can take styl­ish pic­tures. Pho­to: i.pinimg.com

Decid­ing on the image is the task of the com­pa­ny’s man­age­ment. But the pho­tog­ra­ph­er can advise on how to prop­er­ly styl­ize the shoot­ing, show good ref­er­ences, sug­gest a loca­tion.

It is eas­i­er to shoot in a busi­ness style than in an infor­mal one. If every­one is dressed about the same, then no one will stand out from the big pic­ture. And most impor­tant­ly — every­one will look har­mo­nious­ly in the office loca­tion. Pho­to: telemetr.me

There are no rules for the infor­mal ver­sion. But it is used less often than oth­ers. But for oth­er sce­nar­ios, here are some tips:

• it is bet­ter to avoid very thin and syn­thet­ic fab­rics that fit the body. They will shine through, break, look untidy;
• how to put togeth­er a busi­ness image for a pho­to shoot? Make it up from things that match in style and col­or. It is bet­ter to agree in advance which col­ors will be the main ones if you want a pho­to in the same style;
• a small pat­tern on shirts, t‑shirts will either merge or “ruf­fle”;
• clothes for a busi­ness pho­to shoot should fit in size, be clean, ironed. Slop­pi­ness, creas­es on the fab­ric — all this is imme­di­ate­ly vis­i­ble and it repels a poten­tial buy­er, employ­ee, employ­er;
• an almost win-win solu­tion is a roy­al blue suit. The tra­di­tion­al dark ver­sion (col­or — #002366) was dis­cov­ered by a tai­lor from Som­er­set. He sewed such a dress for the Queen of Great Britain Char­lotte of Meck­len­burg-Stre­litz. The col­or is dark and sat­u­rat­ed (but not mourn­ing black), does not empha­size the bright­ness of red­ness and rash­es on the skin (like red, pur­ple). There­fore, it suits almost every­one;
• Is it pos­si­ble to do make­up for a busi­ness pho­to shoot? A good solu­tion is to invite a make­up artist and hair­dress­er. They will be able to pick up a neu­tral day­time make­up and a neat hair­style for every­one.

Usu­al­ly the image for such pho­to shoots is cho­sen dis­creet. But you can put a bright accent: tie, scarf, jew­el­ry. Pho­to: yapl.ru

How to pose correctly

It is bet­ter to look at pos­es for a busi­ness pho­to shoot from oth­er pho­tog­ra­phers, on dif­fer­ent sites (Pin­ter­est and oth­ers), in spe­cial appli­ca­tions. For exam­ple, the Pos­ing App has many options for men, women, and mul­ti­ple peo­ple. If you real­ize that the mod­els are too tight, you can use loos­en­ing tech­niques.

Do not be afraid of bright accents. For exam­ple, a bright back­ground can make a pho­to look less bor­ing and for­mal. Pho­to: medium.com

The impor­tant thing is to watch your hands. If a per­son is very ner­vous or rarely pho­tographed, he will pinch him­self, hide his hands in his pock­ets, cross them on his stom­ach. To avoid such sit­u­a­tions, we have pre­pared a spe­cial cheat sheet.

Pos­es for a busi­ness pho­to shoot for women. Pho­to: pinterest.com

Pos­es for a busi­ness pho­to shoot of a man. Pho­to: pinterest.com

Schemes for shooting a business photo shoot

We have col­lect­ed sev­er­al schemes that will help to make a busi­ness (busi­ness) pho­to ses­sion in a stu­dio, office.

To work, you need an octo­box on a stand. This is a fill light. You need to put it so that the object from below is com­plete­ly illu­mi­nat­ed. A soft­box can be used as a draw­ing light source. It is need­ed for the for­ma­tion of chiaroscuro. Illus­tra­tion: Eliza­ve­ta Chupiko­va, Photostore.Expert

A clas­sic scheme that is rel­e­vant if there is a pho­to­phone. One of the pulsed light sources should be aimed at the back­ground behind the mod­el. This will cre­ate a spot of light there, which will sep­a­rate the sub­ject from the back­ground. Illus­tra­tion: Eliza­ve­ta Chupiko­va, Photostore.Expert

In this cir­cuit, you need to use a reflec­tor. The main light is at a 45 degree angle, to the left of the pho­tog­ra­ph­er. Because of this, there will be a strong shad­ow on the right side of the mod­el’s face. To remove it, you need to put a sil­ver reflec­tor on this side. Illus­tra­tion: Eliza­ve­ta Chupiko­va, Photostore.Expert

We hope that our mate­r­i­al will help you orga­nize a busi­ness pho­to shoot in the stu­dio, office or on the street.