Category Archives: Headshots Done On Location
Headshot Composites & Corporate Group Photos
In our business of professional headshot photography we do a ton of location shoots at local Dallas business offices. Above is a sample of one we did last week for Dallas UBS group over at the Crescent Building. First shot is a nice, little group photo in their office lobby. We always try to make an interesting grouping with whatever is available in the way of furniture and backgrounds and we think it worked well here. Second thing we would like to point out is our “Composite” service. Sometimes when we do a group of corporate executives we like to offer a “composite” of the team as a single photo. Here is one that worked out to a nice, square crop but it could be anything including a banner that goes across the top of your web page to a long, thin vertical that goes down either side. These are nice and allow your corporate web designer some opportunity with the web page. Thanks for tuning in, and hope to be back soon.
Sal Sessa /Dallas Headshots
Garden Delights
Had a lot of fun this Saturday evening shooting some photos for the Four Seasons Hotel (Las Colinas) of Chef Katie Natale who has put together a garden right outside of the “Cafe On The Green” restaurant at the hotel. The garden itself is about a year old, and Katie tends to it nightly, collecting fresh herbs and spices to include with food on the menu. This was a fun shoot for us, as we have had the pleasure of working with Katie before and she is a person that is great to photograph and easy to work with. She has a lot of instinct for what makes a good photo, and is very patient with my “just one more” routine! So, just thought we would share a few photos from the shoot here on the blog.
Sal Sessa /Dallas Headshots
Headshots on Location
Hell, y a’ll. We have not been posting here for a while as, well, it has been busy as heck. We cranked out a bunch or corporate headshots for local business clients in November and had a ball doing it. So now we are playing catch-up and trying to post some of these nice folks’ photos on our web page and blog. Although we shot this in December, our client did not get to “post-production” stage until the new year, so we posted it on our 2011 web page. This was a fun, albeit hectic shoot for Luxottica, who is the company behind the Lenscrafters retail stores. Our (well, my) assignment (as in this case I did not use an assistant) was to shoot some nice portraits and headshots of the store’s doctor for various Luxotica future use. Well, this was “some kinda fun” hauling in all this gear to the store and trying to get it all done before the opening bell (10 a.m.) I felt I may have ”bitten off more than I can chew,” but luckily for me the store’s associate, Neal was a big help and jumped in to make the shoot go smoothly. It was also a huge help that the good doc was very “media-genic” and made it hard to take a bad photo! VBG. So, anyway here is a nice snap that caught my eye while editing. For the technical points I will mention that this beautiful portrait was done with one Nikon Speedlight in a Photoflex Octabxox. Camera was Nikon D3 on a tripod with 70-200 / 2.8 lens all the way out to 200 mm and shot (almost) wide-open at a low (1/30th of a second) shutter speed. This can be a bit hairy, but the trick is to make sure the focus point is on the subject’s eye and make sure they do not budge! I may add a few (other shots) later and talk about why you should never attempt a shoot like this on your own. LOL!
Sal Sessa /Dallas Headshots
Tagged Business Headshots, business headshots for women, corporate headshots, creative backgrounds for headshots, Dallas Executive Portrait, Dallas Headshot Photographers, environmental backgrounds for headshots, headshot tips, headshots at your office, Headshots On Location, Public Relations Headshots, shallow-depth-of-field backgrounds for portraits
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Business Headshots Dallas / Tale of Two Backgrounds
Story of Two Corporate Backgounds
Well, so this week we followed up on a nice shoot we had at the beginning of the year for a really fun company named Moneygram. My associate and I shot a bunch of their executives at an Irving hotel meeting. Having a professional headshot photographer available for this type of stuff is great for companies like Moneygram and others as they can flesh out their archives and get plenty of backup for future use. They use these photos for all kinds of things. Brochures. Public Relations. Corporate Communications purposes and so on and so forth. When we arrived at the hotel to shoot these headshots we were asked to shoot them with an environmental background. The hotel lobby was small and cramped and since there was a lot of traffic we had to settle on a large painting which we threw out of focus. The headshots turned out fantastic. The company was happy with them. I was happy with them. But when they called on us to shoot a similar meeting that was going to take place in their corporate office we had to decide what to do about the background. This brings us to a few options, dear client and fellow photographers (I turned off comments so if you have any email me and I will be glad to put them in a discussion fashion next post.) I am not a big fan of “cut and paste” and / or “green screens.” I don’t care how good you are, it still can look fake. If you think you want to go that route of course it is possible to just photograph a few of your own out of focus backgrounds and simply pop the folks on there. That way when you show them on the company website (especially side-by-side) you have consistency. We can go into how and when to do that in the next post. But for now lets assume that unless we can shoot a whole company’s headshots on location with the background we agree on to bring, I say go with something that can be used by any present / future / in-town or out-of-town photographer. We do this by using a nice, corporate and conservative paper background by Savage Background which any photographer / client can find here . I use “Thunder Gray # 27″ but you can choose one that fits your taste. Photographers can do this and communicate to the client down the line. Clients can do this and request the photographer pick one up for their shoot. The smaller rolls are only about $25 and are perfect for headshots. So, to wrap it up for now? If your company, or your client is starting from scratch but thinks they may have headshots in other towns, future turnover of employees _or_ photography services (LOL) remember a “Tale of Two Backgrounds” is like a “Tale of Two Cities.” You can match them up perfectly, inexpensively and with very little hassle. Next conversation we should talk about instructions to, or from your photographer on lighting, posing and etc. to make your companies headshots match from town to town, and / or if you feel you have to cut and paste some of the things to make that go well.
Sal Sessa /Dallas Headshots
Corporate Headshots / Hair & Make-up
So, today I thought it would be worth getting a conversation going about hair & makeup at a corporate headshot photo session. As you may have gathered (if you have read this blog) we are corporate headshot photography specialists. We don’t shoot actors or actresses, but rather “corporate types” who can be just as dramatic! Especially when it comes to getting their headshots and portraits done. Since a lot of our work is done at the location of the business itself and the sessions are limited to a small time frame we don’t normally bring a make-up and hair stylist with us. We can provide referrals to the services, and are happy to do so. For the quickie headshot sessions, of which for us is the norm, we are doing anywhere from 10 to 15 headshots in an hour. A lot of times clients are using these very small for a website only and are not that concerned about getting “the perfect” look for their corporate types. But if it is a shoot for an executive portrait, or a serious photo of a big VIP for the cover of a magazine, or annual report, etc I would suggest offering this service to the client and encouraging it as well. Why? Well (IMHO) not only is a good hair and make-up specialist going to make your photo look better than it might have without her or him on-board, they can act as the second set of eyes that I referred back a few posts about. They are stylists. They have the eye for detail which the photographer may be missing out on while concentrating on just photographer stuff (focus points, lighting, conversation whilst shooting, etc.) This superceeds the typical photo-assistant (with all due respect) that some photographers bring along to the shoot, who typically are another set of hands, only. As mentioned. Having a pro onboard when doing a serious VIP executive portrait can help both the client and the photographer. Is it necessary for quickie headshot sessions, where time is of the essence and volume may come into play (meaning you are shooting 10 headshots in an hour?) Maybe so, maybe no, IMO. It depends on how the client is going to run the pictures, logistics of the space, time allotted to get the job done and the budget. Is having a make-up and hair person onboard for a studio session a good investment? Absolutely, and for all the obvious reasons we covered in this short article, plus much, much more. I”m hoping some folks in this industry might weigh in with some comments to add into the conversation. Pros. Cons? Pluses? Minuses? Photographers: do you bring hair and make-up to headshot sessions? Clients: are you interested in this service for headshots? Hair & Make-up artists? Do you do a lot of this type work? Can you offer any information pertinent to the article? Any comments are welcome.
Sal Sessa /Dallas Headshots
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