How do you work out your corporate photography rates in London?

A question we often get asked by other photographers and we find it hard to give an answer. Not because we do not want to divulge this information as for many years we had it on our website, but you have to come to this decision based on your situation and many other factors that are involved in corporate photographers undertaking a commission.

We have always quoted our rates which include the rights to all the headshots and corporate images with a full licence to use in any media over an unlimited period. Many other photographers retain control over their photographs and stipulate terms of usage and periods of licence. This is clearly another way to gain revenue and therefore these photographers could reduce their corporate photography rates and making their quotes more attractive at first glance.

Another factor which comes into play is charging for post production. We include airbrushing and retouching with our headshot and corporate photographers rates but do put a limit on the number of photos included. Post production rates vary and the quality certainly can vary but when setting out their stalls photographers look at the complete service that is being offered to clients and corporate photography rates are not the only factor businesses take into account when choosing who they will use.

We get a least four emails everyday (weekends included) from retouching companies in China and India. Prices are so low you wonder how they ever managed to afford the computer to do the work on. We do not outsource our post production and with all the data protection laws being tightened are very unlikely to do it in the near future. I do most of our headshot retouching and airbrushing and find it a real pleasure these days. In the past when I was working alone I found it a chore as I was always having to tag it on at the end of the day and clients would be needing their photographs the following day. These days I have block periods during the working day to complete corporate photography post production and have began to get better and better at it. I find the trick is to make sure you can not see that the headshots have been retouched. Subtle is the best word to describe our post production and people look better but not overworked or false in anyway.

Our corporate photography rates are charged out by a combination of people and time. We can photograph X amount of people in X amount of time. So we structure our costs in hourly, half day and day rates all plus the good old VAT.

Should you put your corporate photography rates on your website? A few photographers do and many do not. We used to display them but got feedback that we were either undercharging or being undercut. Several times we lost work due to people charging just a little less than us. Also I had a call once from a leading London corporate photographer who left a voicemail saying that we were not charging enough as they had picked up a job we could not attend and the client had told the photographer what we had quoted. I suppose at the end of the day it all boils down to what your costs are, against what profit you need to survive or prosper.

Recently I have began looking at what other photographers charge and it varies greatly for the same sort of service. My research saw headshots in London studios for as little as £50 (not sure how that is possible with London rates) going up to £500 for a top London studio. It must work along the lines of the first studio doing 10 shoots a day and the top London studio doing the one per day as I can not believe they would be booked out at that price. But my point is they are making the same amount per day and that is why corporate photography rates can vary so widely in London.

Please get in touch if you would like to discuss our corporate photography rates and different package options.

Corporate photography rates in London

 

 

 

Grantly Borrett-Lynch

Corporate photographer and editor.

 

 

 

LinkedIn Photography London

Tips and ideas on how to use photography on your LinkedIn profile page.

We have posted before about the importance of your LinkedIn profile photo and the benefits of having a professional or carefully  considered headshot on your LinkedIn page but another important area to consider is the banner or background image you can customise along with the URL you can tailor  to benefit you.

The banner image which runs behind your profile photo is important as it is the second thing visitors to your profile will look at. If you leave the default LinkedIn image it looks like you could not be bothered to finish the page and therefore looks unprofessional. I have noticed that people will spend a great deal of time getting their text perfect for their page but when it comes to the use of photography on their LinkedIn profile it seems they either ignore it leaving it as default or make a vague attempt to drop something suitable in. Both or these practises are flawed as LinkedIn has become an excellent market place for professionals but also a way potential employers, clients and customers can check you out without you knowing they have had a look at your professional background.

A friend who was setting up her first LinkedIn page was told by the head of her graphic design degree course not to put a banner image featuring any of her work but just to upload a white file so it appeared neutral. I can see the thinking behind this but I do not agree with the thought process. On your LinkedIn page you should utilise every aspect to make yourself stand out in the business arena. If all the students from my friend’s course follow that advice and only one student uploads her work then which profile will stand out. I suggested she makes a collage of her work so it represents her designs and she can also tailor the background image if she is going for a certain position or commission to fit with that style.

Companies are beginning to ask us to photograph their offices and areas of their business so these images can be used on their corporate profiles. LinkedIn should become a part of your corporate branding and the use of photography is paramount in this process.

On my LinkedIn profile page I have used the image below. It consists of studio, location and office corporate headshots along with one photo of The City. These are the services we offer and the location we work at. Pretty basic stuff but hopefully just by looking at the background photo you could work out what we do and where we do it.

LinkedIn photography London

Whichever profession or business sector you or your company work in there will be decent imagery that would greatly improve your profile. Consider what you could use and if you are drawing a blank then approach designers or photographers and collect some ideas and inspiration. It might be a good idea to invest in some good photography software as the banner image has to be 1584 x 396 pixels so all photos would need cropping to fit the letter box format. As already mentioned a montage is useful to fill this shape as square or portrait images can make up the wider landscape crop.

The second point I wanted to draw attention to was the way you can customise your LinkedIn URL. It is free and can help your SEO and make your page more memorable. Simply click on the edit URL option and add your name, company or keywords. Some are taken but you can play around to find a URL which fits your profession. We are corporate photographer London which makes sense.

Please get in touch if you would like our help with your LinkedIn photos and here is an article on professional corporate headshots.

LinkedIn photography in London

 

Corporate Headshots on a White Background.

The most popular style of corporate headshot with the subject looking to camera with a white background.

For many years we have been capturing these for clients and it is only recently that we have seen a common problem occurring. Shooting headshots with a white background seems a pretty simple set up and it always was in the past. Clean crisp white Colourama and a diffused light to make it nice and blown would give you and the client exactly the effect they were after. The problems now arise with businesses and individuals putting these headshots onto company websites where they assume the white background on the headshot will match with the white of a webpage. The background will retain some element of tone and hue as the digital camera sensor will always try and level out any colour to give an average recording. You cannot get around this even by flooding the background with white light. Now we try to make clients aware of this but it does sound a little daft to the average person who says they just want a headshot on a white background. We always try and establish the end use for the headshot now as we want to prevent the problem before it arises.

In post-production we remove the headshot from the background and add a white web friendly background in photoshop. An easy process once you know how but as with all photoshop work it really depends on the workflow you use. There are a few tools that allow you to do this but some give much better results than others and one thing is for sure there is no way you can automate the process.

We recently did a shoot in London for a company with their HQ based in Hong Kong. When we sent them the original high-resolution images they were very pleased and we mentioned about the post-production work if they were going to be used on a website. About a month later we received an email noting that the Hong Kong office had flagged some problems with the shots as they were showing some marks on the white background and could we check what we had done incorrectly. After looking at the website screenshots we could tell that the headshots had been cut out incorrectly and this was the problem. The photoshop tool they had used was not that accurate and left pixels in on the white area. We have since gone on to do the cutouts for the company and the problem has been rectified. Describing this problem to clients is not an easy task and telling them it will cost extra in post-production to get the right result tends not to go down to well. We now send samples out so that they can see for themselves that you have to go through with the process.

Sample 1. Standard corporate headshot captured in camera with a white background. Technically correct but flawed for use on a white webpage as it is still retaining tone on the background. You would think that the simple solution would be to add more light to the background but this does not work as it starts to bleed through into the edges of the person and messes up the exposure.

LinkedIn headshot with a white background unedited

Sample 2. Headshot after photoshop post-production. Headshot cut out with a white web friendly colour background added. Clean and crisp and as on this webpage the background matches the white of the webpage.

Corporate headshot with a white background edited

 

If you have had this problem or need any more advise please get in touch and we can talk you through our process and improve your companies headshots. Please see also our previous article on tips for corporate headshot photography

 

Corporate Team Photography in London.

Things to consider when you are commissioning a corporate team or group photograph.

In our opinion the team photo is the most tricky photography commission as unless you plan it correctly there is a real risk that the shoot will not go they way you imagined.

Minster Court for London team corporate photography

Minster Court for London team corporate photography

Corporate team photograph at Smithfield Market.

Digital marketing company team photo at Smithfield Market.

Corporate team photo in St Paul’s Churchyard London

Corporate team photo in St Paul’s Churchyard

London corporate team photography in Westminster London

Commissioned for the retirement of the IMO chairman this group photo was taken on the rooftop of the IMO building with The Thames and Westminster in the background.

Team photograph of Mclaren Engineers at London landmark

Team of Mexican Mclaren Engineers at London landmark

Director team photograph on The Thames London

Director team photograph on The Thames.

Director team photo in London offices.

Director team photo in London offices.

Corporate team photo on Eastcheap London

Corporate team photo on Eastcheap London

Team photograph on London roof with The City in the background.

Small team photography on the roof of the Blue Fin building on Southwark Street.

 

Over many years we have been involved with plenty of corporate team photographs and the more people involved the harder it becomes to arrange it properly. Small team shots are much easier to get right as they have fewer elements. One of the main problems that can ruin your team photo is getting everyone who features to be looking at the camera and smiling all at the same time. Fine if you have three people to arrange but when you anything over double figures this becomes a problem as you are unable to see everyones face at the moment the shutter is clicked so you have to make sure you take a series of shots to be sure that at some point all the people have right expression and are looking to camera.

If we go through the process of a large team photograph. The corporate photographer arrives and will recce the offices to suggest the best location for the photograph. This is normally decided as the largest area available and where the photographer can get an elevated view of the group or team. This is essential with large groups as you can not have fifty people lining up like a football team as the photograph will be a very wide format and not suitable for their website or as a printed hard copy. The next stage is the really important one as we have witnessed repeatedly that if you do not organise people and tell them where to stand they will drift into a random shape and once they have formed this shape it is very hard to move people around. The expression ‘like herding cats’ springs to mind. The best plan is as people emerge into the area you are using for the corporate team photo, break them into groups of 10 approx and then have areas you want each group to occupy. That way if you want a triangular or circular shape to your team photo you can control where people stand.

One of the largest group photo we have worked on was for IMO whose HQ is near the Thames in London. As this was going to be a very large team photo we budgeted to recce the offices prior to the day of the shoot so we could work out where to situate the people and our best vantage point. The IMO had a large auditorium which would have suitable for the shoot but it did not utilise the fact that they had wonderful views of London from their offices. An external shoot was suggested and after finding a fire door out onto their roof we decided to capture the team photograph outside. This involved the photographer on the roof and then the team of people standing on a courtyard area with the London backdrop behind them. We had to plan a day where the sun was not too bright as this would be too contrasty at the time of year we were planning to do the shoot. We arranged to have a member of staff with a megaphone on the roof with us and five members of staff in the group ready to move the smaller groups into position. You can see from the sample team photograph that we needed to get the group into a triangle so we used security tape to create the shape and then moved people in. Once everyone was in position we removed the tape. We captured around 30-40 images of the group on two cameras to be safe and knew that we would have to do some photography post production work in photoshop. One of the problems is getting everyones attention and keeping it. Large groups take time to arrange and people start to chat with each other and often if they do not want to be in the photo will stand directly behind a taller person in front of them. Having to sort all these problems out takes a while and then when you feel you are at the best point to take the photograph you need to get everyone looking at you. We took around 20 images of the team looking at the camera and then to pep things up we asked them to wave to camera as well. The shoot went very well and I made sure that in some of the photos we had a red London bus and a black cab in the background. The shot that was chosen did not feature the red bus so we dropped this in photoshop and had to adjust 10 people expressions by pasting them in again from other group photos where they had a correct expression.

With this particular corporate group photograph was printed and framed as it was a present to one of the directors who was retiring. The photograph was also made available for all staff who appeared in the shoot as momento of the day. Many were ordered as prints large and small and this serves to prove that  people like to be part of a successful team and a great group photograph is an ideal way to record unity, pride, scale of success and your friends.

Of course not all corporate team and group photography commissions are on this scale but the rules apply as the number of the people get smaller. For press releases we often photograph a team of directors who have just formed a company or won a large contract or pitch. These are normally taken in London offices and need to show the team looking professional and successful. Always think of the composition of the corporate photo. The background plays an important role in framing the group and a good background will be the difference between an average team snap and a professional team photograph that all those involved in are proud to be associated with.

Large team corporate photograph at the Gherkin in London

Group photograph at the top of The Gherkin London.