business photography

Fix your profile

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Business portrait, executive portrait, headshot, social media portrait or profile picture. No matter what you call it, a picture of yourself is important for your business. Really.

For social media, the most important picture is the author’s own portrait. For businesses, both small and large, having online portraits of key employees is very important. Really.

People trust what (and who) they can see more than what (and who) they can’t. A profile without a photo is like a day without sunshine. (Okay, I made up that last bit but hopefully you get my point).

From an Inc. Magazine article titled Fix Your Profile Picture:

Your profile picture is about branding you and the business you own. Are you handling it that way?

(. . .)

Invest the money in a professional photographer. Profile pictures are a booming sideline for many professional photographers. Hire one. It should cost about $200 depending on where you live and what you need specificially [sic].

(. . .)

Update your picture every couple of years.

 

Pitching For The Team

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It’s common practice for news photographers and editorial photographers to pitch photo ideas to newspapers and magazines. In fact, many publications expect this.

A smart commercial photographer or corporate photographer could do the same thing with clients with whom they already have a working relationship. But in this case, just pitching an idea isn’t good enough. The photographer must also sell the reason for the proposed photo coverage and the benefits of that coverage.
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What’s in Your Photo Closet?

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The start of a new year is an ideal time for a company to re-evaluate its business photography and consider updating its images. Just as schools have a “picture day” at the beginning of each new year, businesses should do the same.

Like a loaf of bread, business headshots can go stale after a while. While you might be tempted to keep using that 12-year-old portrait from when you had fewer wrinkles, the shelf life of a business photo is typically about two years. There’s a reason most annual reports require fresh executive portraits each year. Perhaps it’s time to show your customers that your president owns a tie that’s not from the last century!
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Photo Surgery

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I’m not sure if this is an indication of anything but last month I received three similar photo requests. I wasn’t asked to shoot any photos but instead, the customers wanted me to fix pictures they had shot themselves:

• The first was to fix a group photo that an employee had taken. The people in the picture are now back in their respective hometowns so there’s no chance of a reshoot. The group picture was under-exposed, slightly out-of-focus, had red-eye and was poorly composed with some bad shadows. Photoshop can only do so much but the customer was happy with the results of the emergency retouch surgery. The picture will now have a happy life in a company newsletter.

• The second request was another do-it-yourself picture. But unfortunately this one was inoperable. I diagnosed a terminal case of the blurs. A photo may look okay on the camera’s tiny LCD screen but when viewed at a larger size, any and all imperfections become very obvious. I suspect the company already knew this and just wanted a second opinion.

• The third request was to pull out one person from a group photo and make it look like a business portrait of that person. This image was rushed into the operating room for some complicated photo surgery. It was touch-and-go and, sadly, a few body parts had to be amputated in the process. The photo, now reduced to a head-and-shoulders, is recovering and will be strong enough to appear in a Powerpoint presentation.

Everyone loves to take pictures and this is great for personal photos. But if your company is thinking about doing your own business photos, here are three suggestions:

(i) Don’t.

(ii) Take lots of pictures and hope one hits the target.

(iii) Know where the closest photo emergency room is located.

 

Portraits that mean business

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Q: What’s the difference between an Executive Portrait and a Business Portrait?

A: About $500.   (It’s an old joke but sometimes it’s true. Read on.)

Business Portrait:

This is usually a head-and-shoulders photo against a plain background. Eye contact with the camera is important and a bit of a smile never hurts. A plain background, while not absolutely necessary, won’t distract the viewer. It’s also easy for any other photographer to duplicate a plain background in any future business portraits of other employees, should the need arise.

This type of portrait should never look like a passport picture, a driver’s license photo or a family snapshot. On the other hand, depending on the company, a business portrait doesn’t have to be a serious suit-and-tie picture.
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