{"id":265,"date":"2010-03-01T12:17:33","date_gmt":"2010-03-01T12:17:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.matsmithphotography.com\/photolife-blog\/?p=265"},"modified":"2010-03-01T12:19:51","modified_gmt":"2010-03-01T12:19:51","slug":"running-a-shoot-corporate-headshots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.matsmithphotography.com\/photolife-blog\/running-a-shoot-corporate-headshots","title":{"rendered":"Running a shoot: corporate headshots for a firm in London"},"content":{"rendered":"

This blog post features a selection of photographs from last week’s shoot with the founders and select staff at Melcrum publishing.<\/p>\n

The term corporate headshots<\/em> leaves me a little cold; I prefer to think of them as a series of mini quick-fire interviews and I like to make them last for up to 15 minutes each, depending on how quickly we get the shots. In most cases it only takes 5-10 minutes.<\/p>\n

As always, the kit used for a photo shoot often determines the style of the photographs that come out, and in some cases where I want the diaglogue to be snappy, I prefer to go as natural as possible and use a single off-camera flash with a shoot-through umbrella.<\/p>\n

During such photo shoots, I sometimes like to engage the sitter in a fast-paced conversation about the exact details of the work they do on a day-to-day basis. I love getting little slices of people’s lives.<\/p>\n

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In smaller business commissions, it’s often the case that there is not enough room – or time – to use your own backdrop or set up studio lighting.<\/p>\n

As soon as I arrive, I look around for a space where the reflected light will be as white as possible, and assess the usability of a wall for a backdrop. Sometimes the backdrop may be too reflective, but in the case of most white walls it’s possible to manage the reflections.<\/p>\n

The plus side of this limitation is that you are without the constraints of seating, free to allow the subject to stand and make conversation whilst snapping.<\/p>\n

I like to inform the subject that the best photos come just when you are about to laugh or when you are about to sound-off about a colleague I have never met, and so I keep chatting from behind the lens. If this makes the subject a little self-conscious, that’s great, because I can then poke fun where appropriate, which in turn gets a laugh.<\/p>\n

Without posing the subject too much, I will experiment with a variety of facial expressions. It’s usually towards the end of the 10 minute slot that the subject feels relaxed enough to look good for the perfect headshot.<\/p>\n

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The photographer must keep moving the light stand around, however. And this makes post-production that little bit more difficult, as the light varies so much between shots, and people’s skin reflects light differently.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This blog post features a selection of photographs from last week’s shoot with the founders and select staff at Melcrum publishing. The term corporate headshots leaves me a little cold; I prefer to think of them as a series of mini quick-fire interviews and I like to make them last for up to 15 minutes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[65,64,222],"class_list":["post-265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-portrait","tag-business","tag-headshot","tag-portrait"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3P4E5-4h","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matsmithphotography.com\/photolife-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matsmithphotography.com\/photolife-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matsmithphotography.com\/photolife-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matsmithphotography.com\/photolife-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matsmithphotography.com\/photolife-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.matsmithphotography.com\/photolife-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":279,"href":"https:\/\/www.matsmithphotography.com\/photolife-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265\/revisions\/279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matsmithphotography.com\/photolife-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matsmithphotography.com\/photolife-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matsmithphotography.com\/photolife-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}