Four tips to create distinctive team photography in Edinburgh

So how do you actually inject a little bit of personality into a team photography shoot? I think it’s a bit like making a cake – adding in the right ingredients in the right order makes a brilliant showstopper that would be worthy of a  Paul Hollywood Bake Off handshake.  Let’s give you a bit of background to the photography experience we created for 39steps and Smith Scott Mullan.

Moving beyond standard headshots and rooting the imagery in the firm’s culture and ethos was really important. Making the headshots “active” and photographing the team at different angles with different body postures and looking in different directions was all part of the brief.

Photographing the team within their design studio which reflected their aesthetic and ethos was equally important – their space was their “home” and the backbone to the collection of photography.

Then comes the team. Combining all the different members of the team into this space was the next ingredient. The office has been designed with collaboration in mind and has various meeting rooms to get the team thinking, dreaming and creating.

So mixing up the spaces we used was fun – using the big communal kitchen table space, the boardroom for round table discussions, sofas for informal reviews of drawings, sketching concepts or debating detail round table – telling the visual story of the parts that happen in everyday work life matters. Placing the team into their spaces is where the story comes to life.

After all, we’re nosey people who want to look behind the curtain – you’re the expert so always show don’t tell…

Subtle styling choices – meaningful props such as sketchbooks or material samples and considered lighting that highlights the space matters – propping and lighting have to look natural and authentic and not staged. That can be difficult but that’s where the skill of s decent photographer will come in. Considered design and not out of place takes a good eye and shouldn’t be overestimated.

Strobe lighting was used in all the images (we use Profoto kit if you’re a photography geek) – but crucially – it doesn’t look like studio lighting was used –  the imagery should feel natural and more like a visual story of how the team thinks, collaborates and creates rather than staged photoshoot.

I also believe it’s about working with the right people. The phrase “I hate having my photograph taken” is one that I hear all the time. Very few of our clients come to us because they adore having their photograph taken. More often than not it’s because of bad experiences either with a photographer or because of poor lighting or remembering that a situation was stressful.

So if we make the experience enjoyable and fun then that comes over in the resulting photography collection.

If after their headshot someone says “that wasn’t so bad after all..” I take that as a huge win – going from hating something to not being bad is a big movement in 10 minutes.

If people enjoy the experience it also means we are more likely to be invited back for another round in the future!

So if something resonates here just pop us an email – we’d love to do great things with you and your team.

#BigBlueSkyLove

Niels

Lastly – it’s about polishing the images and making the collection hang together in the edit. At Blue Sky Photography we can either fully hand finish and Photoshop each and every image we take for you so everything looks super polished and flawless if you want us to or we can simply crop, correct colour temperature of images and bring consistency to the collection just as you’d prefer.

The latter we call base edit (cropping, tones, colour balance and dust spot removal) which we do to every photograph or we can then additionally open the photograph in Photoshop and fully polish the image and retouch any blemishes or remove objects (for example  doors, fire exit signs and plug sockets for example). Full photoshopping is a skill and think it matters so much that we have our own in-house editor who handles all our work.

Every photograph receives base edit and full VIP Photoshop experience is available for an upgrade if you like (on either some or all of the collection basis).

However – remember you can’t polish a turd – if you think you can correct a photograph in post-production you’re wrong. You need to get the base right and then add the final finesse in the edit to make the photograph stand out.

If you’ve an upcoming project we can lend a creative hand on feel free to reach out to us and we’ll get our heads together!

#BigBlueSkyLove

Niels

Brought to you by:

Client, branding and design agency: 39steps

Client: Smith Scott Mullan

Photographer: Blue Sky Photography