ALWAYS USE A PHOTOGRAPHY BACKGROUND FOR CORPORATE HEAD SHOTS

Whilst there seems to be a trend for corporate head shots to be captured against the natural working environment background there are still some company directors who don’t want this type of look for their corporate head shots.

Personally, I like the working environment backgrounds (like the production line, a shelf of files, a computer workstation, the water cooler, the photocopier etc.) providing the background is nicely blurred and intentionally thrown out of focus using a wide aperture. I think that using the working environment as a background puts everything in to context. Whenever I see a client about taking portraits I suggest using the working environment as the background, and openly admit my thoughts and opinions about this.

Most of the time (I’d say 98% of the time) I manage to persuade my clients to use the working environment as a background for the corporate head shots however I do sometimes come across a client who wants their employees photographed using a plain backdrop, as was the case with my most recent head shot assignment.

Despite my best efforts I could not persuade the client to use a working environment backdrop, instead I was told to use a plain white wall in the boardroom. When dealing with paid shoots the client is always right, so I duly obliged and set up where I was told, and proceeded to take the shots.

When I viewed the head shots on the LCD screen they didn’t look too bad, however when I got home and loaded the photos on the computer it was a different story. When I was taking the head shots I didn’t notice the color inconsistency of the wall. The wall was white, but it had obviously faded and changed color over time, and the camera clearly recorded this.

The background was slightly different for every shot and there was nothing I could do using my photo editing software to sort it out. The backgrounds weren’t a million miles off, but there were differences and when viewing each photo side by side the difference was easily noticeable. If the client was going to use one head shot per page, i.e. a single photo on each webpage, the inconsistency in background wouldn’t matter. The problem was, the client wanted to have a series of head shots on each webpage, and the inconsistent background would be obvious.

I was not happy with the head shots and I offered to re-do them (at no cost) but the director declined and was insistent the original shots were used. The director didn’t want me on his premises and disturbing his employees (again) so flatly refused to let me take the head shots again. I didn’t want my name associated with the head shots so I offered to do them for free and said I didn’t want any recognition for them. Yep, the only way I could think of to keep my reputation intact was to do the gig for free and move on.

The moral of the story is to make sure you always have a plain photography background with you when you go out and take corporate head shots. Hopefully, your client will let you use the working environment as the background, but if you are forced in to using a plain background you will be prepared and have a backdrop that is consistent and won’t lead to the problems and issues I ended up with.

This corporate head shot assignment taught me an important lesson and I have since purchased a variety of photography backdrops, together with a goal post style stand, and make sure I take them on every shoot, and not just the corporate head shot shoots.