A business portrait is an important image component, a business card, or a tool that represents a person as a professional in his or her field. The range of applications of business photography is very wide. Today we will give some tips for your corporate business photoshoot, which can be used by photographers and models alike. If you need more ideas for photoshoots, go to Skylum’s website, there are a lot of interesting ideas for a friends photoshoot, for example.
Table of Contents
The Model’s Appearance
The most important element in taking a business portrait is the appearance of the model. Corporate photography is an integral part of a company’s image. Some companies will be close to such concepts:
- Respectability, solidity, and reliability.
- Somewhere else, on the contrary, the positioning is built on youth, innovation, and mobility.
- And someone sees his company as informal, creative, and even provocative.
Deciding on the image is a task for the company’s management. And photos of employees should fit into it as organically as possible. Accordingly, the image of the people being photographed should not contradict the general concept, if such a contradiction is not thought out in advance and is not a conscious marketing move.
Tip for a model: if you have a creative profession, then, depending on the case will look winningly bright colors in unusual combinations, prints, or monochrome, but again, unusual clothing. Preferably things to take with you, you should not go to the shooting directly in them. That way they won’t get wrinkled. Accessories will be advantageous. For both men’s and women’s business shoots, it is better to choose laconic ones – not too-flashy watches, small earrings in tone, and a neat brooch.
Choosing a Location
Usually, the choice is either a single-color paper background or an interior room, stylish but understated:
- A portrait on a homogeneous background is classic studio portrait photography, carried out when there is a shortage of time, a lack of suitable interiors, or because the task at hand requires it.
- The background can correspond to the basic corporate colors or match the color scheme of the future publication layout. Shooting can be organized either in a photo studio or on the client’s premises.
- Such a photo shoot may include several close-up and medium shots, several emotions – seriously and with a smile, several degrees of officiation – in a tie and without.
The main advantages of this type of shooting are that it is relatively quick, simple, and without distracting details.
Portrait in the interior – if time allows and there is a convenient location that meets the requirements. This is the most artistic type of portrait, which allows you to show the person in his working environment, and the atmosphere of the company.
https://images.pexels.com/photos/3205570/pexels-photo-3205570.jpeg
With the organization of the process, it is easier and more convenient to make a business portrait in the studio. But as practice shows, most often the shooting takes place with a visit to the territory of the customer.
The place of shooting does not have to be an office, you can shoot on the territory of the company or in a warehouse, in a laboratory or the field, next to a personal car, or surrounded by your favorite pets – what matters is the purpose of shooting and how it will be used later.
Tips on Model’s Posing
A portrait is mostly close-up and medium, meaning that both eye expression and facial expressions are visible. The details make a grand difference. The main trend in contemporary photography is naturalness, accompanied by openness, friendliness, and self-confidence. This is exactly how a modern businessman looks like: he radiates enthusiasm, cheerfulness of spirit, and has a good attitude.
Below I’ll list some principles that will allow the customer not to interfere with a professional photographer doing good and high-quality work:
- You should not pressurize the photographer with authority it should not affect his work. A pressured photographer for the allotted few will not be able to take a picture of the head that was talented, reflected the personality and character, had to do with himself, and corresponded to the ambitious plans of the company.
- Relax. There is no need to think about how to look better, this is the job of the photographer and he will cope with it. Just relax, and be yourself.
- You have to smile because in life we always smile at people we like. It is worth introducing those who will then consider the photo – clients, partners, investors, colleagues – it is these photos that will form the image of a person in the eyes of the right and pleasant people.
- Move informally. Professional models change their poses slightly in every shot. Roughly the same is required from business portrait models. Any mobility is welcome, as is customary in the workplace.
The general task is to make it casual. Practice shows that the most successful portraits, even the most formal ones, are made in an informal setting.
Makeup and Post-processing
Digital technology has made it much easier to get good-quality photos. Previously, it was not possible to get good photos so quickly, so easily, and in such large quantities. Never before could a customer see and adjust the result right in the process. But digital photography also requires subsequent computer processing.
People in the original files turn out to be overly naturalistic. A good makeup artist will reduce the problem by an order of magnitude, but retouching and color correction will still be necessary. Post-processing includes such obligatory manipulations with the photo as retouching, color correction, and other things.
By the way, if you’ve always used Photoshop, we recommend expanding your creative potential and trying the new modern photo editor Luminar Neo. Its AI-based tools make photo processing much easier and more fun, and the result is always great.
