A company headshot day involves almost everyone in the business, and the results end up on your website, email signatures, LinkedIn, and ID badges. When the photos don’t look consistent, it shows straight away. Getting polished, professional-looking shots comes down to planning: agreeing the look, scheduling the day, guiding staff on what to wear, and deciding what happens after the shoot.
Lock in one look before anything else
Decide on the background, lighting, and crop before you book a single slot, and write it down, ideally with a few examples. Your marketing or brand team will probably want a say too. A plain grey backdrop with soft, even lighting and a head-and-shoulders crop is a common choice, but what matters most is that the style is agreed and documented. That written spec is what keeps your team page consistent, whether someone is photographed this month or in two years’ time.
Plan the day around headcount
How long it takes to complete the shoot will depend on the number of people you need to photograph. As a rule of thumb, allow around seven minutes per person for standard headshots, which includes getting settled, a handful of shots, and a quick review. Executives often need more time (up to 15 minutes each), as they may want extra options or a more editorial portrait. As an example, a team of 60 with five executives can take nearly eight hours of camera time before breaks, so larger teams will likely need to be split across two days, or shot by two photographers working side by side with identical setups.
Use booked time slots
Ask staff to book a specific slot rather than turning up whenever they’re free. It stops queues forming outside the room, keeps the photographer working at a steady pace, and means people aren’t away from their desks for longer than they need to be. A shared calendar, a simple Google Sheet, or a booking scheduler set up by your photographer works well, and a reminder the day before cuts down on no-shows. It’s worth leaving a few buffer slots free for latecomers and anyone who wants a retake.
What to wear for corporate headshots
Clothing is the topic that staff tend to ask about most, so send out guidance along with the booking link. Here are a few tips to share.
➔ Solid colours. Plain, mid-to-dark tones photograph well against most backdrops and don’t look dated quickly.
➔ No busy patterns. Small checks, thin stripes, and large logos pull attention away from the face and can create a distracting shimmer on screen.
➔ Bring a second top. A spare gives people a choice on the day, and helps if their first option clashes with the background (or if they spilled coffee down their other top earlier in the day!)
Batch new hires into a recurring session
New starters will keep joining the company after the main shoot. Rather than booking a photographer every time someone joins, group them into a recurring session, monthly or quarterly depending on how quickly you’re hiring. Each session should be shot to the same written spec as the original day, so the new shots are consistent with those from past shoots.
Use the same brief in every office
If your team is spread across several offices, the risk is that each one ends up with a slightly different look: a different backdrop in London, warmer lighting in New York, a tighter crop in Singapore. The fix is to supply the same brief in every city, covering the background, lighting, crop, retouching, and file delivery, with example images so every photographer is working to the same reference.
Agree the retouching standard upfront
Decide before the shoot how much retouching everyone gets, and apply the same standard to everyone. A common approach covers colour correction, removing temporary blemishes, and tidying stray hairs, while leaving permanent features alone. Agreeing this upfront avoids individual requests later, and means no one’s photo looks noticeably more polished than anyone else’s.
Deliver named files, cropped for every use
This final step makes the photos easy to use. Ask for files named per person (e.g. firstname-lastname.jpg), with crops already prepared for each place they’ll appear: square for LinkedIn, a consistent ratio for the website team page, and a tighter crop for ID badges. It saves your internal teams from resizing hundreds of images manually, and means each employee can be sent their own set as soon as the photos arrive.
One partner for every office
If you’re coordinating headshots across several offices, working with a single production partner is the simplest way to keep everything consistent. Shootday runs headshot days in 150+ cities worldwide, with every crew working to the same brief, so the London office looks like the New York one. For each shoot, Shootday sets up a booking scheduler configured around your team, and its central editing team applies the same retouching standard to every headshot. A dedicated account manager handles everything from briefing to delivery, including recurring sessions for new hires, and edited headshots start arriving 48 hours after the shoot.
Find out more about Shootday's corporate headshot photography in the US and the UK.
