Corporate Photographer London Archives

London Architecture Cityscapes.

Cityscapes of the changing London skyline taken from a high vantage point.

Cityscapes London's skyline of architecture in The City

30 St Mary Axe AKA The Gherkin

The Heron Tower, 20 Fenchurch Street and The Shard.

Tower 42, The Heron Tower, The Leadenhall Building, The Gherkin and The Walkie Talkie

We often capture these Cityscapes across The City to use as backgrounds for our corporate headshots. Clients often want to be associated with The City and having a London background on your LinkedIn profile photo is the most obvious way to this message over instantly.

For this reason these cityscapes need to be captured from a high vantage point so that the headshots we drop them in behind look like they have been captured in a corporate office. This means we can come to any office in London and using our studio set up capture your LinkedIn profile photo and then drop in any background you prefer. We blur the cityscape background slightly to recreate the depth of field you would naturally get with shooting with a long portrait lens.

corporate headshots with London skyline background cityscapes

Corporate headshot with St Pauls

Corporate headshot with The Gherkin

These also make great banner images on company or individuals business social media profiles. Take a look at our Corporate Photography Agency

All images featured in this post © Corporate Photography Ltd

London Cityscapes added to Corporate Headshots.

7th February 2018/in Corporate Headshots, Corporate Photographer London, LinkedIn Headshots /by Editor

Post production work adding London cityscapes to studio headshots.

For years we shot these headshots on location in and around London and were open to whatever the weather would hold in store for us and the unfortunate client.

We now offer a service where we have a large collection of London cityscapes and we can drop them in behind your corporate headshot. This means we can eliminate the worry of the weather and dragging clients around London. We can shoot your headshot in our studio space or at your office. This adds the benefit of studio lighting and with clever balancing your headshot can look natural, professional and interesting.

Studio corporate headshot London

Background view over The City and St Pauls

Background view over The City

Background added with Photoshop make sure you blur the background image so it looks like it was shot on a long lens.

Careful to balance the light levels so the person appears to be in their office or boardroom with the background a little lighter.

For more examples please check out or corporate photographers London samples.

For years we shot these headshots on location in and around London and were open to whatever the weather would hold in store for us and the unfortunate client.

We now offer a service where we have a large collection of London cityscapes and we can drop them in behind your corporate headshot. This means we can eliminate the worry of the weather and dragging clients around London. We can shoot your headshot in our studio space or at your office. This adds the benefit of studio lighting and with clever balancing your headshot can look natural, professional and interesting.

Background added with Photoshop make sure you blur the background image so it looks like it was shot on a long lens.

Careful to balance the light levels so the person appears to be in their office or boardroom with the background a little lighter.

Origins of this process.

For many years we had been shooting the headshots with a London backdrop on site. Clients often wanted to be associated with where they worked and having the London cityscape behind their LinkedIn or company website photo was a perfect way to do this.

This was interesting work for our photographers but often we had to postpone or cancel the shoot due to bad weather which in London is very frequent. Our favoured area to shoot was looking back to the City from the view on the south of the Thames. This gave us a good background using St Pauls or The City skyline. This is a public area so no legal problems taking photos there but also this is a very popular area for tourism which made it sometimes unsettling for the sitter.

It was one commission in particular that gave us the need to add a London backdrop. This case was a guy who wanted to show he was in London but did not want the shot to look too touristy. He asked us to make the background very blurry ie out of focus which was something we often did but he insisted he wanted it very blurred. On looking at the results we thought that they were in fact too blurred and that the background was now not identified as London. We sent him the shots and he agreed and asked if we could resolve this for him. He was travelling abroad for a month and unable to reshoot but needed the headshot for his presentation.

We revisited the London location and shot the background less out of focus at the standard we would have originally planned.

I was now my job to lift the old headshot off the poor background and drop it onto the new one. For many years I had been doing this process in photoshop but normally from a studio shot on a white background but this was going to be harder as making the cut out look 100% natural was critical otherwise the whole process would be flawed. After spending many hours on youtube looking at different workflows I put a request on LinkedIn asking if any photographers had any suggestions. One of the guys I had work with for several shoots came up with a process we now still use and it allows you to feather the edge of the cut out which gives the headshot a near perfect clipping path.

Now when a commission comes in for a London headshot background we always suggest the cut out process. We have a large library of pre shot London cityscapes which we allow the client to choose from. We often blur these in photoshop to attain the perfect match with the headshot. This does take extra time per commission with the added post production but the benefits to the client are massive and at the end of the day its all about giving clients what they require.

This last image is a great example of the cut out process. Look at the hair and how it looks against the sky.

Designing your Photography Website Portfolio

11th December 2017/in Corporate Photographer London /by Editor

Post that can help direct our online portfolio design. Written by British Journal of Photography

What do photographic agents, curators, editors and commissioners look for on an online portfolio? Five industry professionals offer their perspectives.

The photography portfolio has, some might argue, been eclipsed by its digital counterpart. Offering an opportunity for almost limitless invention and innovation, mastering this mode of display involves a whole new set of challenges. From the colour scheme to layout, every element of a photographer’s website deserves careful consideration.

When designing a website, however, it is also important to carefully consider your audience. What is it that you want your online platform to say about you as an artist and how do you plan to communicate this? To help better understand what makes a compelling website, we asked five industry professionals about what they look for and why having a strong online portfolio is so important today.

What do you look for in a photographer’s website?

Diane Smyth, Digital Editor – British Journal of Photography: A website that’s both clear and easy to navigate – the design comes after. Images need to be large enough to see them properly, but small enough to load quickly. I don’t like seeing watermarks on images. It’s helpful if the images are divided into separate series, with text before each series giving a quick idea of what it’s about. I also like to have a quick bio of the photographer somewhere on the site and (obviously) details of how to contact them. It’s better to have a small number of really good images than a large volume that includes weaker shots.

Ken Flaherty, Founder – Doomed Gallery: I like to see the one image that really defines the photographer on their landing page. I also like to know the story behind a body of work. Photographers can be unwilling to express their ideas and motives in words; for the viewer, a brief explanation or critique, can help us look more and understand what we are seeing better.

John Wyatt-Clarke, Founder – Wyatt Clarke & Jones Photo Agency: I see a glaring divide between websites that are trying to achieve something and those that are just reflective of a photographer’s fascination with themselves. A good online platform should be designed to guide an ideal visitor towards a specific action, whether it be commissioning, buying work or enquiring about an exhibition. It’s also important to clearly distinguish the work that is most important to you, to give a sense of what direction you’re going in as an artist, and consequently, where you’ll be in a few years. As an agent, I’m interested in the future, and I want a website to give me an idea of that.

Fiona Shields, Head of Photography – The Guardian: At The Guardian we will always view an online portfolio before commissioning a photographer for the first time so it is important that we can gauge the range, breadth and style of imagery. I would always advise making contact details very prominent on the opening page and including your geographic location, along with your phone numbers, email address and Twitter account – I will often try all three if I’m looking to contact a photographer as a matter of urgency. This landing page is a shop window for your talents so be scrupulous over quality and keep the edit varied but tight.

How important is your first impression when looking at a photographer’s website? And would you say that this is dictated more by the nature of the work, or the way in which it is presented?

DS: I’m much more interested in the work itself, but if the website takes ages to load or I can’t find my way around it easily I’ll definitely come away with a bad impression.

Matt Martin, Co-Curator – Doomed Gallery: A bit of both. If the work doesn’t jump out at me immediately then it’s rare that I will look through the rest of the website. Good design and a strong lead image can help with this, but it’s also important that the site is easy to navigate.

JW-C: I spend a great deal of time on photographers’ websites. We get up to 50 emails a week from photographers looking for representation and consider each one carefully. First impressions aren’t that important because we’re trying to find people we can work closely with for years, so looking at their work more thoroughly is always necessary.

FS: Always check that your website can be found simply on a Google search under the name and keyword ‘photographer’, and that the website loads swiftly on desktop and mobile. Any picture editor looking to make a commission immediately, or who is considering a number of photographers, will be frustrated by a complex portfolio that can’t be accessed easily.

Should a website exist solely as a platform for the featured work, or is it important that it has a distinctive aesthetic too?

DS: I don’t have much of an opinion on this one, either one is fine by me if I can find and see the work and find contact details for the photographer. It’s sometimes nice when I come across an unusual or quirky website. But in general I’d say the aesthetic of the website should come lower down a photographer’s priority list than their work.

KF: I’m really interested in the idea of the virtual gallery as somewhere you can explore. I also really like it when photographers provide further insight into their work through the inclusion of interviews or short text.

JW-C: It’s the photos that count above everything else. An online platform can complement your photography but no site will ever be good enough to disguise poor work. Conversely, if your work is good enough, from the perspective of an agent, you can get away with bad presentation. It would be our job to help you improve your online presence. I’d advise devoting more attention to the architecture, signposting and navigation than the graphic design.

FS: Consider design and allow a slick presentation for anyone navigating their way through your portfolio. If you have particular publications you admire, or would like to attract commissions from, then it’s worth paying attention to their visual sense. Equally, if your style is aesthetically distinct then do play to this strength as it may encourage a picture editor to cast you for a specific brief.

With the digital realm becoming increasingly integral to our everyday lives, would you say that having a strong online portfolio is more important than ever?

DS: Definitely – I rarely get shown physical portfolios now, in fact it seems a bit old fashioned when I do. It’s interesting to see some of the shifts in how photographers are presenting themselves – websites used to be quite formal, presenting work projects in separate series, but on Instagram photographers tend to include more behind-the-scenes images – shots of them installing a show, for example, or photographs from their everyday life. I don’t have a preference about which is better or worse. Whichever format you use, and however you present yourself, all that really matters is that your work is online and that it includes your contact details.

MM: This boils down to the question of where are people looking at photographer’s work the most? Ultimately, I think that when it comes to photography a website is the best place to showcase your work. An online platform provides the optimum space to present images clearly and organise them to communicate any narrative running through a series. However, I do still think that it’s important to have a strong physical portfolio or book.

JW-C: I can’t imagine how anyone would get work without one. A more vital question is how do you get people to look at it? And obviously that’s where social media comes in. A site is useful as a centre for all your social media activity, a place where all these disparate platforms lead back to and where you can showcase a more comprehensive overview of your work. That’s why it’s so important to understand what you want your website to do, so you can focus all this energy in the right direction instead of dissipating it.

FS: Yes, often we are seeking to commission photographers globally who it would be difficult to meet face-to-face so an online presence is the best opportunity to review a portfolio. It is a competitive market so it’s worth spending time presenting work with consideration and keeping the portfolio up to date.

Haruka-Website Portfolio

Haruka Sakaguchi

Ursa-Premik Portfolio

Ursa Premik

Approachable & Professional Headshots.

21st July 2017/in business headshots, Business Magazine Photography, Corporate Headshots, Corporate Office Headshots, Corporate Photographer London /by Editor

Corporate headshots – The professional and approachable style

Corporate headshots. The professional and approachable style.

These headshots were taken for a client who wanted to look professional and approachable. This is a request we get frequently and it can be quite hard to pin down exactly the style the client is hoping to receive. We quoted on a shoot recently and sent over some sample headshots. When we asked if the samples meet with their requirements the client mentioned that they were really good but they were not what they were looking for as the men in the headshots had ties on. We now class the ‘professional & approachable’ style as smart relaxed headshots without a tie.