Reviewing Past Corporate Headshot Commissions.

Before Covid-19 took its terrible hold on the UK, we would write articles about recent corporate headshot commissions. These usually followed if we had a very successful or rewarding shoot and had interesting points for the reader. As we move into another lockdown and no sign of our work coming back soon, we are looking at past corporate headshot commissions. The one we are looking back on is a shoot we did for Harrods. We were asked to capture their management team’s corporate headshots at their offices in the Harrods building in Knightsbridge. Their marketing director arranged a large office for us to do the shoot in and plenty of coffee to keep us going. We had agreed to do the headshots on a dark background which is not usually used for corporate headshots as 90%are taken against a white background. Sometimes the dark background can look a little overpowering and not as clean and crisp and a white one.

Prior to the commission, we always send over some wardrobe guidelines to give people some ideas and suggestions regarding what works and what does not. The Harrods team were very professional and very well presented, and we knew directly that placing them in front of the dark grey background would be a great match. When it came to the lighting, we decided to keep the lights soft and direct to avoid any harsh shadows. We photographed ten people on this commission, and with plenty of different poses and expressions, we were sure the client would be happy.

The feedback was very positive when we sent over the preview images. A couple of headshots were selected for retouching and airbrushing, and we really pleased with the results. The two samples below show how the monotone clothing and the dark grey background lift the person’s skin colour and give a striking corporate headshot. The ironic thing was that the client later asked us to convert the colour images into black and white as they had changed the website design.

Professional corporate headshot on dark background.

Professional corporate headshot on dark background.