My People and Places Portfolio and Blog
A couple of weeks ago I did a corporate photography shoot with the senior management of the Russian offices of a large multinational company. The brief was to produce a single usable portrait shot for each of the team for a large conference they were hosting for their largest clients, all household names throughout the world.
So this was my first time doing corporate photography, but I knew what I needed to make this a success with minimal equipment, the right light and location would be key.
In this case a speedy shoot with each of the eleven was all I had as these are busy people with little time for me to brief them or to make them more comfortable.
When I arrived at the office I noticed the reception area had huge windows, was large and spacious, and had the company logo I could have as a backdrop, it was abright day outside, and the light was diffused through the coated glass making it and ideal location.
I was met by the marketing manager who was to facilitate the shoot and shown to the room that they wanted it to take place, it wasonce a meeting room that seemed to be used for storage, and had no natural lighting. I still prefer to shoot in aperture priority mode if I can, makes life easier for me once it is set right, and in these situations bracket the shots by a 1/3 stop. Anyway I shot some test shots in the room and also in reception to show her that reception would work better, she agreed but from then on wanted to direct the shoot. This generally involved me taking the good shots in good locations and she wanted to try different locations until we settled on the location I selected. In the end it went quite well, but in future shoots I will be doing more of the directing as I know I have a better eye for what works.
The feedback I got was very positive, and I will be going back to take some more creative shots for them in the future.
If you need a photographer for your event or corporate literature email me at phil@philhawley.co.uk.
Here are the finished shots, but click on the thumbnails to show the full shots as the thumbnails are cropped:-
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Phil, the photographs are very nice!
Nice work Phil, I would definitely ensure you do the direction, from experience as a graphic designer I know too well that the client is an expert in everything to do with the project. A situation that has caused me to politely remind them that they got an expert involved for a reason, if they want to do it themselves they can easily hire the equipment ;0)
You did a great job here, my only thought might be to warm the shots a little, maybe in PP or perhaps using one of those 5 in one reflectors to ‘bounce’ light onto the subject using the gold edge? Just a thought and in now way a criticism of these superb shots.
I spotted someone I recognise on the bottom row ;0P
Hi Shaun,
I agree, I had a lot of problems with light on the day, and a few of the shots are slightly cold. I am looking around for a decent reflector for this purpose. I should have tidied them up in Lightroom, but I was under pressure to give them the shots very quickly, and I had a new monitor I didn’t get around to calibrating properly.
But thanks for the feedback.
Cheers,
Phil