Employee Engagement Headshots: Everyone Looks Good

Employee headshots -- a great gift idea

This is going to be a short post as I've written about a similar type of shoot before, but I wanted to publish this well ahead of the holidays because it's the perfect time to suggest a company headshot photo shoot as a gift to your staff. We're doing more and more of these as leaders, wanting to show their appreciation for the unique contributions of every employee, realize that a great way to do so is to give everyone the most personal gift possible -- a professional portrait of their unique selves. 

Not only does everyone get a great profile portrait but they get the fun of experiencing a professional photo shoot, and while it's true that quite a few people purport to hate having their pictures taken, we make it as "fun and painless" as possible (people say this about our shoots), while making sure to get the best and most flattering shot possible in the time we have. 

While it's true that pretty much every company these days has the resources to put together some kind of employee portrait shoot I can pretty much promise that a professional photographer will deliver better, more consistent and more professional looking results. We also know from experience that employees really appreciate the fact that we use "real, professional gear", and take care with every individual who steps in front of our camera.

I've written before about the importance of a good, professional headshot. With business networking portals, internal corporate communications platforms, and every other social media app facilitating inclusion of a picture of the person posting or contributing, it makes sense to 1) have a profile pic, and 2) look good and look your part. But how many people can afford to go out and get a professional headshot? A professional staff portrait shoot is a great way to give employees something they may not be in a position to organize themselves, but will really appreciate, with the added bonus that companies are ultimately more professionally represented.

Please call or e-mail me to talk about how we can make your employees feel special and look great. Book now before the holidays, or give employees something to look forward to in the new year. Look forward to speaking!

kathryn@hollinrake.com
hollinrake.com

Women of Influence Photo Shoot with Ginella Massa

Fall 2017 Cover of Women of Influence Magazine

Some of my favourite professional moments are those I get to spend meeting and working with accomplished professional women, so when Stephania Varalli, Co-CEO and Head of Media at Women of Influence contacted me about shooting their next magazine cover I jumped at the chance. The subject: Toronto celebrity Ginella Massa, "Canada's first hijab wearing reporter, and the first anchor of a major Canadian news channel to wear a hijab on-air." (Women of Influence)

As is typical these days in the world of publishing, the budget was limited, but there are certain things that are worth doing, if possible, no matter the budget or lack thereof, one of these being a pre-shoot site visit. The advantage of location scouting is not just figuring out logistics such as where we'll be able to unload gear and park on the shoot day (who wants to be dealing with these unknowns on a shoot day?...not me), but getting the opportunity to pre-visualize and plan ahead. Working out where exactly we'd be shooting meant windows could be cleaned, and furniture moved and dusted prior to our even getting there to set up, a luxury we don't often have, but one that positioned us to be particularly nimble and efficient on this shoot.

The other helpful luxury was getting to speak with Ginella about wardrobe prior to the shoot. Although I have a blurb I typically send that outlines basic do's and dont's there's nothing like actually looking at at a subject's clothing and accessories ahead of time to make sure we're on the same page.

And this brings me to yet another opportunity to underscore one of the many advantages of working with an all-female team. No woman really wants a photographer barging in on them when they are barely out of their pajamas, but at least if it's another woman, it's less...inappropriate. In Ginella's case, in particular, it meant we had a green light to show up prior to her putting on not only her make-up, but her hijab. As it happened, thanks to our preparations, Ginella walked onto the set perfectly camera-ready, in the perfect wardrobe, anyway, hugely aiding us in our goal to shoot reasonably quickly and free her to get back to work on time.

The other thing working in our favour to this end, oddly enough, was our lack of permission to shoot in the second, outdoor, location. As a professional, I tend to be somewhat cautious in terms of breaking rules, or exposing shoots to any potential liability, so whenever possible, we get the proper permits for location shoots. However, when we were unable to contact anyone with the authority to issue a permit, we decided to go for it and shoot in our selected outdoor spot anyway, quickly. How à propos given that Ginella owes her success to refusing to be held back by what some would see as the 'rules.' 

 

Behind-the-scenes shot by assistant Lindsay Voegelin

A shout out to assistant Lindsay Voegelin for taking the behind-the-scenes pics to share on social media. I have to admit, we had to stage this shot a bit since the 'real' picture showed me bending over in an extremely unflattering way (think wide angle lens...distortion of objects closest to the lens...), so we fudged the set-up just a tiny bit to spare our (my) dignity and maintain the appearance of visual competence. Thanks also to designer Lois Kim...as evidence of how fast we were shooting...she didn't even have time to find a place to put down her lunch before we co-opted her into holding a light stand.

I must say I felt especially lucky that the weather held for us, given the amount of rain we've had this summer. In fact, the forecast was not stable that day, so we were on the lookout for signs of inclement weather, but the sun stayed out, and it was a hot one. Ginella, the consummate professional did not even break a sweat. And I was reminded how more-than-usually fun it can be to work with a subject who is comfortable and experienced in front of a camera. (Of course I still love all my hate-having-their-picture-taken clients...and per my raison d'être as a portraitist, only you and I know who you are!)

On that note, I'll sign off, with one final thought: even if you don't need a picture for a magazine cover, you want to look good wherever your picture appears, right? So call me. I can help.

kathryn@hollinrake.com
hollinrake.com

Portraits Created for Longevity

Temperance Marketing Partners (screen grab from their website)

Recently I had an opportunity to photograph the three core partners of Toronto's Temperance Marketing for their new website. Originally they considered having Megean, the agency's Manager of Digital Marketing, shoot them, since part of her job is photography. But they understood that there is a difference between the often somewhat temporary nature of social marketing photos and the longevity required of 'foundational' photos that will reside on the company's website, and possibly appear in print, for some time to come. These images need to be of high quality, clearly convey the company's brand, and of course, look really good, even when viewed repeatedly.

When they sent me a mock up of the site by their designer Jennifer Weaymouth of Weaymouth Creative, to show me the kinds of portraits they wanted, the first thing I noted was the style; they were bright, fresh, environmental portraits, ie. shots that had been taken (or looked as if they'd been taken) in an office, or outdoors, or in some other appropriate place, that drops beautifully out of focus behind the subjects. This is a trend in corporate portraiture that I really like. 

Unfortunately not everyone has access to a suitable office or corporate-appropriate environment. Yes, you can rent spaces by the hour for photo shoots in Toronto, but doing so can be cost-prohibitive, and there are the logistical considerations -- sourcing, scouting, coordinating availability of the space with clients' schedules, etc. It has also been possible for a long time to digitally cut out a subject and place them in some alternative background, but to do this really well (ie. well enough for high resolution reproduction) took more time and care than would typically fall within the budget for many corporate portraits.

However, I really wanted to be able to offer all my clients the option of an environmental (looking) portrait. So, after much testing, and starting a background archive, we now have an efficient and economical solution, allowing us to shoot in studio and composite in an environmental background.

The background in this shot was never intended to be in the final image - it just provided the colour and tone to facilitate replacement with the selected environmental background

When I visualized the background I thought would work for these images I actually thought I'd need to shoot new images, so I reached out to one of my clients about taking some pictures out of their office windows. They were happy to accommodate,  but I needed a sunny day, and as luck would have it we had just started into a two week run of cloud. (When did Toronto's winter weather start behaving like Vancouver's?!) The opportunity to shoot there clearly wasn't going to happen in a timely manner, so I revisited my archives and after some experimentation discovered that I actually had what I needed. I just needed to do some creative skewing, cropping, resizing, colouring, exposure adjusting and blurring. 

An outtake from another client's location shoot 
(used with permission -- thanks Cornerstone Physiotherapy!)

A tiny portion of the previous picture, adjusted to work as a portrait background

The final touch as far as the background compositing went was to make sure I used a slightly different part of the background image for each portrait, so it wasn't obvious that the background was added in. (If we'd really been shooting on location the view would change slightly depending on the subject's position.) In fact, I went the extra step of subtly changing small elements within the background for each portrait, for aesthetic reasons, specific to each portrait.  

Beyond the style of background there were other details about the designer's sample photos that were important to note, as I knew these particular samples were chosen for good reason: the lighting was very open and flattering, the angle of the camera was straight on (not looking down), making the women look strong and confident, and the look was somewhat casual but clearly business oriented. These are the kinds of details that it's our job as professional portrait photographers to care about. And they're the kinds of details that can make a huge difference to the overall impact and success of a portrait.    

This attention to detail continues into post-production (the processing/optimizing/retouching after the shoot). Here's a tiny picky detail my clients probably didn't even notice, but that I felt compelled to fix:

An example of a picky detail that I don't like to leave uncorrected

Ultimately the feedback from Anita, Megean and Shazya was that it was "so much less painful" than they thought it would be. I never get tired of hearing this. 

And the final bonus: The younger partners did not have a lot of experience with full fledged photo shoots, thus had not been sure exactly what a "real photographer" did. This isn't uncommon these days, as the barriers to entry into this industry (professional photography) are increasingly low, much can be done with little equipment, budgets are tight, and it can be challenging to communicate the value of hiring a pro. And, realistically, in the case of social marketing posts which have to be executed quickly, economically, repeatedly and ongoingly, it would be logistically and economically impossible to have a pro quote and produce a shoot every time a client had to post a pic. Now, however, these marketing specialists 'get it'. And this will serve them and their clients well going forward.

If you need a pro to bring skill and experience to your next portrait shoot, give me a call. Thanks for reading! 

kathryn@hollinrake.com
www.hollinrake.com

Corporate Team Portraits - "You guys really care!"

Some of the 150 Portraits

Recently we shot a job for a big corporation who wanted staff portraits of up to two hundred of their employees over two days -- one day each at two separate office locations. They had a very specific style and layout they required, so we didn't do anything particularly creative or unusual, except apparently we did. What, apparently, was unusual, according to our subjects, was that we appeared to "care."

The schedule dictated that we allot approximately three minutes per person (which we time to keep us on track) during which we would elicit a solid professional portrait, depicting a happy, calm, comfortable and confident representative of the company. Three minutes is not a lot of time, and if we had fewer people, more time and a commensurately higher budget, I would never recommend such short sessions. However, in this kind of circumstance, we have to work within some immutable parameters. And that's where we as photographers have a choice to make. We either kind of throw in the towel and don't even try to make great portraits, or we step it up and do our level best to pull a rabbit out of a hat and make our three minute clients as close to as happy as our 'full length' session clients as we can. (Sorry, very awkward sentence!) And this is what we do.

In a nutshell, we had all the usual challenges plus some more: a number of the subjects were not at all excited about being photographed, we had no budget for hair and make-up, the staff were in the middle of their shifts so could not leave their desks for long, and there was no budget for retouching. My team included just me and my assistant. Our deliverable was to include one medium resolution portrait file for each subject, and a full set of logo embedded Jpegs for corporate use.

So, every three minutes, we posed the subject, styled their hair, powdered their face if they needed it (almost everyone did), lint-rolled and straightened out their wardrobe, and worked with them to elicit their authentic self. And it was during this sustained flurry of focus and activity that we were told, a number of times, that we were different because we appeared to actually care. The feedback after the shoot underscored this sentiment.

Back in the studio, during processing and preparation of the final files, I took care to select the frames I truly felt were the best, and then I took one extra step to ensure a happy clientele. There were, unavoidably, a handful of portraits that were seriously compromised by skin issues. These I had my retoucher do a quick 'once over' on, as a courtesy, just so that I wasn't sending out anything I really felt was sub-standard.

Bottom line, if you are getting a professional portrait, it should look professional, period. So, as much as I'd like to always have the time, the budget and the opportunity to bring some artful interpretation into the equation (and please call me if you fit this bill), if you need a photographer to make a large number of people look good, quickly, I'd be happy to help. 

kathryn@hollinrake.com