Business Portraits Should Not Be Sidelined

This week there has been a catalyst to me writing this blog.

I thought I would be writing about estate agents and homeowners in relation to property photography.  That now is for another day, however it was an estate agent that performed the role of catalyst.  My local paper, the Farnham Herald, has a significant property section, as do most local papers and this week a full page was taken by a local estate agent, not advertising homes but rather the staff.

There is nothing wrong with the idea, in fact it can be quite productive as it introduces the personalities to the public.  The advert was designed to basically introduce the team and employed the expected head and shoulders mugshot.  Which is where I pull up short and start ranting at the advert.  I found myself talking to myself out loud, which to be fair is quite common these days!

What I really struggle with, is why people invest so much time and money into aspects of a project and then seem to bolt the photography on as an afterthought.  I still look around the internet and see well planned and executed websites for, say, accountants and solicitors, only to be let down by personnel photos that look like something from Crimewatch.  Often it extends to all the photography including the facilities interiors, products and general viewing photos but why do staff still seem happy to look so 'last minute'?

For most things and I'll accept I am biased, the photography should be the starting point.  In this day and age photos are king.  Photo sharing media sites sell for billions of dollars or have valuations high in the atmosphere like: tumblr, Instragam, flickr and facebook which is as much a photo sharing site as anything else.  The prolification of personal social photography and the instant migration of those photos across the web, coupled with advertising, PR and marketing campaigns centred around strong photography, prove that photos are the medium which lead the story.

So, why does an estate agent offer up a page full of under par mugshots?

I honestly don't know.

It isn't a painful experience to organise a set of good, clean, engaging portraits of the staff.  There is a choice as to the style and type of photos you have done and a range of photographers to choose from, according to the approach you want.

They can be done environmentally, essentially in your place of work/setting, which puts you and your job in context or in a studio (which can incidentally come to you). You can have individual photos done or go for the team photo or a mix of both.

The point is these images say a lot to your customers.  Get it wrong and the overall message you are trying to get out there is corrupted, in fact get it wrong and your advert might just do the opposite to what you intended.

Your customers might think that if you can't present the team well in the photographs, or indeed any other aspect of you company, you might not present well in other areas.  This means that if you decide to photograph your staff as a means to promote your business, apply high standards and don't succumb to the 'point and shoot', 'in house' option.

The portrait below was done for a client, Chris Lane (www.chrislane.co.uk) wanting a set for his website.  We worked on a variety of images changing the pose and clothes but this is a clean and straight forward example.

The following two photos were done in the same style as above, but for a different client.  These are samples of the individual photos with the one following these two, the whole team (Market Focus Research Ltd www.casme.com)

If you are looking to promote your staff a group photo can suggest unity and teamwork, with the emphasis given to highlighting the company as a whole.

This portrait was taken within a large set illustrating a The Pilates Suite in Farnham (www.thepilatessuite.co.uk).  The photoshoot produced photos of the equipment being used by models as well as the owner, Kirsten Harle, in her environmental setting.

And here we have an estate agent, Ian James with Strutt & Parker in Odiham!  Nothing to do with the catalyst mentioned above but hopefully a clean engaging portrait.

Even photographers sometimes need promotional photos. This is not me I hasten to add, but sometimes photographers have to photograph photographers! Peter Wright, an outstanding house photographer with whom I often collaborate. (www.peterwrightphotography.co.uk)

And last but not least I did a selection of portraits for a PR firm, Spotlight Communications (www.spotlightcomms.co.uk) and this is one of the bosses, Lesley Bennett. The whole team came to the studio and we used the studio to emulate an office environment.

So, if you have read through this and you fancy now getting some portraits done of yourself and your staff, my diary is waiting!

One more....

Another pet sample....

Pet Sample

Pet Portrait sample

Most recent pet shoot was a beautifully behaved dog who immediately won everyone over. She is lovely and I'll put a few more up soon but for now....

The Studio Photographed

Having decided to take some advertising space in Round & About magazine, four months worth in the Farnham area and a month in Haslemere to start with, I finally got around to photographing the studio.  The advert was the catalyst and the push I needed to clear the desk for a short spell.  Although I have a wide lens, it still needed a series of images stitched together to showcase the space.  There is a bit of distortion but this is what my studio looks like...

It is a comfortable space and the double doors on the left allow me to get in larger stuff.  I have a tentative booking for a motorbike and the other day I found myself dicussing the possibility of getting a horse in here!

Well, I've already had a snake, bearded dragons and ferrets in here so I might was well look at the other end of the scale!

Pack up the Package

I have been mildly obsessed recently with the idea of packages. This obsession stems from looking at other photographers websites and trying to compete with the idea of 'what I offer'. So I have been making up options to include sitting fees and then various choices of canvas and frame, artbox, acrylic, books, prints and Facebook prepped files. But when you start on this road it's never ending! There are so many permutations and you can never be sure that the package will be what people want.

So it's been driving me nuts and then I read an article which appeared via LinkedIn. The basis of the article covered old ground, but it was good to read again about the basics which can so easily get buried under loads of packing cardboard.

What it made me realise is that whichever way I package it, the fact is photography is an entirely bespoke service. Photographers don't make a retail product as such, mostly every time we work we look to create something unique, regardless of the field in which we work and this is always the case with portraits.

We do offer fixed products like the canvas and the print, but these are secondary considerations made once the photos are viewed and different photos call for different choices of presentation.

So there are reasons why 'the package' is nonsensical. You can't select a package before the photos are created, because you can't be sure how the photos will look and translate to different presentation choices. I can't really calculate a package because every customer is different and wants something suited to them personally.

Most enquiries have included asking about buying photos in a way not specifically packaged on my website or for products I haven't yet even offered. So this only goes to shore up the bespoke element of what I do and given that when I opened the studio I set out to avoid copying a rigid format seen on the High Street, I am going to pack the package up.

When customers come to me I shall get in first and ask what they want, I won't try and pre-visualise their desires, rather I will look to tailor what I offer to each customer. Which was always the aim frankly but I found myself sucked into the 'package'.

So it's bespoke all the way.