Category Archives: headshots

Cavendish rebranded from BECG Group commission fresh and up-to-date corporate headshot & lifestyle photography

Posted by Richard Boll on 8th March 2024 – 2:04 pm

Filed under Birmingham, Commercial Photography, Corporate headshot photography London, Corporate Photography, Corporate Portraiture, headshots, Location Photography, London, Southampton

Cavendish

Cavendish (formerly the BECG Group) is a multi-award-winning communications consultancy that specialises in working with corporate and political organisations. Their recent rebrand has unified the Group’s four sub-brands: BECG, Cavendish Advocacy, Liberty One, and LoveThat, marking its journey to become a full-service international communications consultancy.

With a 150-strong team of consultants, their collective knowledge, abilities, and expertise span many different sectors, including Energy & Utilities, Infrastructure, Property, Health & Wellbeing, and Fast-moving Consumer Goods (FMCG).

By combining the company’s specialist corporate communications, public affairs, digital engagement, and creative services teams, the new Cavendish brand will offer its clients a fully integrated solution with the ability to deliver impactful, multi-discipline strategies and campaigns.

Corporate Headshot & Lifestyle Photography

Over 3 consecutive days, I visited the Cavendish Headquarters in London and two of their regional offices in Southampton and Birmingham. I produced a wide range of corporate headshots and lifestyle photographs of their employees that were commissioned to update and reflect their new branding.
The images that were generated combined a range of photography including staff working in their offices, having creative meetings, socialising, and going for walking meetings outside. I also took a range of corporate office lifestyle photography of office interiors and exteriors.

Day 1: Southampton

Day 2: London

Day 3: Birmingham

The 3 day shoot

In all of the locations, we took pictures inside the offices as well as outside to get the benefit of natural light. During the shoot in London, we took photographs in Westminster due to Cavendish’s specialism in working with political organisations.

As part of this shoot, I also arranged for a hair and makeup artist who I’ve worked with before to be on hand for the headshot photographs. The headshots taken have multiple uses. Cavendish can use the images for their website, and also for LinkedIn profiles, presentations, promotional and marketing materials, editorials in magazines, etc.

A video crew was also in attendance on these shoots creating content at the same time. Combining two mediums to get moving footage and still images is a fairly common scenario on the corporate photography shoots I carry out.

Corporate Lifestyle Approaches

There are two main approaches I tend to use for corporate lifestyle photography. One approach is to take ‘fly on the wall’, documentary-style photographs showing people naturally working at their desks or engaged in meetings around the office. The other is to set up mini scenarios which could be between 2 and 10 people. For example, arranging staff to sit together in a formal meeting, having creative conversations about specific projects, or social scenarios with colleagues meeting up for coffee or having breakfast in the offices. It’s good to mix up these photography approaches to show different sides of office life.

The 3 day shoot was really enjoyable and it was great working with the Cavendish team on this rebranding project, and to see the images being used so extensively throughout their website.

To find out more about the new Cavendish brand, visit their website and see more examples of my corporate lifestyle photography work.

There is more to Corporate Photography than Headshots.

Posted by Richard Boll on 1st March 2023 – 1:23 pm

Filed under Corporate headshot photography London, Corporate Photography, Corporate Portraiture, Editorial Portrait, headshots, Studio Photography

When people think about corporate photography, they often see it as limited to either company portraits or headshots taken of CEOs, senior leaders, and employees. But there is much more to corporate photography than just business headshots.

As a commercial and editorial photographer, I often get asked to photograph a wide range of other corporate lifestyle and ‘behind-the-scenes’ aspects of a business including:

• people working, having meetings and discussing ideas, and socialising at work

• office interiors

• architectural details of the outside of company premises

• annual company social events, business networking meetings, conferences, and award ceremonies

• before-and-after shots of construction sites

• office technology that is of particular significance to a client’s business

• automotive, furniture, and food production factories where products are being manufactured

Corporate clients in the past have used these shots for a wide variety of applications including on their websites, and social media including LinkedIn, annual company reports, business plans, editorials in magazines, press articles, newsletters, emails, etc.

Many corporate clients will commission a variety of different photography styles, as well as professional headshots, to reveal their working environments, properties, and office buildings. The lifestyle aspect of these photographs makes a statement about their organisation and highlights their corporate brand and image in an effective and professional way.

It’s worth giving this some thought before you choose a particular corporate photography style.

I’ve helped many clients in the past, working closely with art and marketing directors, to choose the best style for images that suit their brand and company values. We discuss various ideas and options that can help make these important decisions.

If you need an experienced corporate lifestyle photographer, email me at richard@richardbollphotography.com or call +44(0)7812908229 to discuss your next project. More of my corporate photography can be seen here.

Six of My Favourite Corporate and Personal Photography Projects in 2022

Posted by Richard Boll on 24th January 2023 – 12:17 pm

Filed under Corporate headshot photography London, Corporate Photography, Corporate Portraiture, headshots, Location Photography, London, Portrait Photography

When a new year starts, I like to look back on the year before and review photography projects that I’ve worked on. I’ve handpicked 6 of my favourite corporate and personal images from 2022, depicting a range of different photography styles, including corporate headshots, corporate products, corporate portraits and two portraits from my personal UK visual artist project series.

1. UK Visual Artist Portrait Series: Gavin Turk

This portrait of Gavin Turk forms part of a personal project from my UK Visual Artist Portrait Series, inspired by his own work including the ‘Portrait of Something That I’ll Never Really See’ (1997). I love this double portraiture combination shot particularly in black and white, as I think it’s more graphically powerful giving a direct, punchier effect to the stripes on his shirt. Both of these elements also echo Turk’s previous work using combinations of double portraiture and stripes. What I like about portrait photography is quite often, an unexpected result can emerge either during the shoot or in post- production as in this case. There’s a need to be open to chance and not overly plan the end result.

2. Corporate Headshot Photography: Octopus Energy

Octopus Energy is one of my regular corporate photography clients and this image is from a series of shoots that involved photographing staff in 3 of their offices based in London, Manchester and Leicester. Working alongside an Art Director, we collaborated to produce a whole library of corporate headshots and lifestyle imagery. This shot shows a flavour of the natural, documentary ‘fly-on-the-wall’ photography style that I think suits the Octopus brand really well. What I like about this particular image is the employee looks very relaxed and is clearly having a real, natural conversation with a customer, oblivious to the fact that she’s being photographed.

3. Corporate Product Photography: Kin Chairs, designed by Pearson Lloyd for Allermuir

Allemuir came up with the original design concept for this image. Taken in their Preston studio, I attached a camera onto a scaffolding tower looking down onto this range of Kin chairs. What I like about this shot is that it shows off the products in an interesting and visually intriguing way. There’s the play on colour of the chairs around the table and it was fun choosing the props to co-ordinate with the chair colours. Having to direct a model was an interesting aspect of the shoot, in order to get a good range of images that worked. I like this particular photo of the model reaching into the bowl as that worked well compositionally, as a focal point in the middle of the table.

4. UK Visual Artist Portrait Series: Adam Chodzko

This portrait of Adam Chodzko, is another favourite image of mine from the UK visual artist portrait series. It was a particularly enjoyable shoot with a strong collaborative element to it. We discussed the images at some length beforehand with Adam letting me know what he thought would work and wouldn’t work. I like this particular image because it highlights the collaborative approach to the shoot, and echoes Chodzko’s love of water and use of crossovers between different spaces. The recording equipment he’s holding picked up both urban and rural sounds within the space and I plan to use the sound clip as part of the installation for a future exhibition.

5. Corporate Product Photography: John Lobb, Frank Sinatra’s Wooden Lasts

John Lobb is a bespoke, traditional shoemaker to celebrities and royalty alike. Central to their process is the creation of a pair of wooden lasts, shaped to the exact contours of the wearers feet. What started as a purely personal project, initiated by asking if I could photograph the wooden lasts, has now developed into a regular commission shooting images for John Lobb’s marketing and social media.
This photograph of Frank Sinatra’s wooden lasts is one of my favourite images from the project. It’s not just the fact that they belonged to Sinatra who was an icon that many people can connect with, but I love the fact that they’re well-worn with interesting textures that suggest that many shoes were made from this pair of wooden lasts. In a way, they speak of a history and a life well-lived.

6. Corporate Portrait Photography: Elrige, Master Last Maker at John Lobb

This was a commissioned portrait by John Lobb who requested photographs of their Last Makers. I’m particularly fond of this image of Elrige, Master Craftsman and Last Maker. He is a real character and I love the intensity of his stare in this photo. I also think this portrait captures the essence of the traditional establishment of John Lobb with its traditional working methods, where each wooden last is carved by hand.
Elrige may appear to be wielding a lethal weapon here, but the tool he’s holding is essential for last making and is known as a Last Knife. It’s used to get a block of wood down to the rough shape of the last. Afterwards, a surform, various grades of files and sand paper would be used to get the last down to its final shape and measure.

See more of my corporate portrait and corporate lifestyle photography projects taken on location in London and around the world.

Corporate headshot photography: Why every business needs fresh and up-to-date professional headshots

Posted by Richard Boll on 11th July 2022 – 10:35 am

Filed under Corporate Portraiture, headshots, Location Photography, Portrait Photography

How professional headshots reflect and elevate your successful brand.

Professional, high-quality corporate headshot photography is a necessity for any successful, well-established company, to portray an authentic business image that suits your specific brand. These unique portraits should reflect the individual employee being shot and the overall values of the business.
Headshot photographs can be used in a variety of ways:
– They form the first impression of the business and its employees and can be used for marketing, not only on your website but also for LinkedIn profile pictures, press stories, business plans, annual reports, and presentations.
– To help build a connection with your potential customers, as people are more likely to reach out and make enquiries if they can see the faces of the CEOs and employees behind that company.
– Brand headshots can help to represent certain values and qualities, such as warmth and sincerity, generally giving the impression of your staff being friendly and approachable.
– When new colleagues join and with more people working remotely, it’s a good way to build that connection internally and introduce new faces to the business

corporate headshot photograph of individual by richard boll for the brunswick group

Styles and approaches to headshot photography.

When producing corporate headshot photography, it’s common to shoot either against a completely neutral backdrop or to show the interior of an office space.
The advantage of using a white or grey coloured background is consistency and neat uniformity for each headshot. Every photograph, even if shoots are carried out six months apart, can look entirely uniform. It’s useful on a company page, to reflect the level of organisation and togetherness of a business. If shots are taken within an office interior, often the background will be made deliberately out of focus. You can still see the photograph is taken in an actual office, rather than against a backdrop paper. Your choice comes down to the nature of your company’s building and if it’ll suit the image you want to portray. It’s worth giving this some thought before you choose a particular style.
I’ve helped many clients in the past work out the best style of headshot photographs to suit their brand and company values. We’ve discussed various ideas and options that I’ve used previously and potential suitable locations and styles, to help make this important decision.

A professional photographer can make or break your corporate headshot photography.

Any photographer you commission will bring their own level of expertise, creativity and style to your brand headshots. Many companies that I’ve shot for have set style guides and dress codes, to ensure the same consistent approach is used by multiple photographers around the world. It doesn’t matter if the photos were taken in London, Mumbai or New York, every shot will have the same look, even if photographed on different continents by different photographers.
I photograph people using a wide range of set poses, which means I can shoot them efficiently in a fairly short space of time. Typically, I only get 15 minutes at a time (sometimes as little as 5 minutes) with each person. People don’t have hours to spend having their picture taken and my approach lets them get on with their working day.

corporate brand headshot portrait photography commissioned by octopus energy

The old adage that everyone has a best side is absolutely true. Rather than spend a great deal of time trying to work this out, I shoot the same series of poses facing to the left and the right. By the time I’ve photographed the whole range, I’ll have about 60 images per person. I delete the off shots, for example, someone blinking, leaving around 40-50 shots to choose from. I prefer to use a portrait lens for headshots which has a particular focal length considered optimal for taking portrait photographs. Flash lighting is also an important element to consider. I always bring at least two professional flash lighting heads with modifiers, such as softboxes or umbrellas. These provide a flattering, soft light and in combination with other lights, create a visually pleasing aesthetic.
Once you’ve chosen your favourite shots, these images will then be optimised and refined digitally in Photoshop. Sometimes, retouching and fine-tuning is needed if people have creases in their shirts or stray hairs, for example. Unwanted objects in interior shots, such as fire exit signs and other distractions in the background can also be removed. The final headshots are as polished and refined as possible, providing a consistent look across a complete set of images.

In summary, successful and well-established businesses will be expected to have a regularly updated set of professional, fully optimised and consistent corporate headshot photography taken by an experienced, technically adept, professional portrait photographer.

Examples of headshot commissions that I’ve carried out for clients including Citibank, The Brunswick Group, Numis Bank, and Octopus Energy can be found here. If your own brand headshots need an update, please feel free to email me at richard@richardbollphotography.com or call +44(0)7812 908229.

Corporate portrait photography in London for Numis Investment Bank and The Brunswick Group

Posted by Richard Boll on 21st January 2022 – 12:42 pm

Filed under Corporate Photography, Corporate Portraiture, Environmental Portrait, headshots, Location, London

In September of 2021, I was commissioned by the creative agency The Brunswick Group to take corporate portrait photography of key members of staff at the investment bank Numis. The images were produced over a two-day shoot in various locations at their London offices. Each portrait required the location to be scouted and compositions discussed in advance with an art director from The Brunswick Group.

Numis is an innovative and dynamic investment bank with offices in New York and London. They’re proud to have the largest client base by number of corporates in the United Kingdom, and through combining their leading component services such as equity sales, M&A solutions, and trading and debt advisory, they operate at the forefront of the industry.

More of my corporate portrait photography can be seen here.