Forward planning is vital to the success of photoshoots
Eye-catching, original photographs bring company annual reports, websites and other communications materials to life and make a business stand out from its rivals.
But as everyone in corporate comms knows, capturing the images you need for marketing or communications collateral takes careful forward planning, especially when it involves the diaries of the CEO, Chairman or other senior board directors.
Too often opportunities to take interesting pictures at site visits are squandered because a corporate photographer wasn’t on hand to shoot the visit. Don’t let this happen to you.
Boring looking annual reports
The consequences of not having enough photographs taken throughout the year is that when it comes to producing the company annual report corporate communications teams are forced to plug the holes using stock photography sourced from North American photo libraries.
We’ve all seen these standard, bland photographs which say nothing interesting about a UK or European business, its services, staff and customers.
To avoid the dreaded request to [insert great photograph here], here are some steps you should consider when planning your next annual report or other corporate comms materials.
Book photographers early
As soon as you hear a likely site visit is in the offing, make sure the CEO’s PA allocates around half an hour in his or her diary for a photoshoot during the occasion. It’s a rule of thumb, but look to shoot at three different locations during the site visit, and bear in mind which are likely to be the most visually interesting.
Your next step is to reserve time in your corporate photographer’s diary. Photographers need to arrange their travel, potentially book accommodation, and often need to recce a site in advance. All these take time to sort out. However, when travel and accommodation are booked early it usually costs a lot less, saving your budget.
Plan to avoid photographic clichés
Photographers like nothing more than being asked to come up with something new and non-cliched. In corporate comms it’s sometimes tempting to play safe and commission shoots that produce perfectly serviceable images but ones that fail to excite audiences or challenge expectations.
If your photographer has been to the site in advance of the photoshoot, they will almost certainly have spotted opportunities for shots that reveal an aspect of the business that might hitherto have been missing from your corporate story.
Bear in mind too that interesting or unusual photographs are very useful for PR media work. News editors are more likely to use a story in a press release if it’s illustrated with a stronger-than-average photograph.
Do not waste the CEO’s time
A big no-no is wasting the CEO’s time during a photoshoot. Impatience will give way to annoyance if they are dragged around a site while various test shots are taken in pursuit of the best images.
If you’ve commissioned your photographer to do a pre-shoot recce, your colleagues can be test photographed as stand ins for the CEO, allowing the photographer to find the best camera angles and maximize lighting options at the different locations.
It is a truism but you need to “set up your spontaneity” in advance and do not try to busk it on the day.
Rest assured an experienced corporate photographer will handle the CEO with ease, giving firm but polite direction on poses that will result in a variety of shots that can be used for immediate and longer-term corporate communication needs.
Backgrounds are vital
Remember too that backgrounds are 80% of any shot. If you plan to fill your frame with colleagues shot in action, make sure they are suitably prepped for the big day, wearing the right clothing and have been told what to do.
If your business has recently rebranded make sure the old branding has been removed and is not accidentally included in the photoshoot.
Given we all work in the real world, check also for potential breaches of health and safety such as trip hazards being caught on camera.
If you are using ‘props’ for the shoot such as a high vis jacket and hard hat for the CEO, make sure these are the right size and are clean and in good condition.
Office shots can be interesting too
Shots of people at work at their desks or sitting in meeting rooms need not look boring if photographed with imagination. Colleagues photographed in motion or in animated conversation, or against colourful office backgrounds, can add a lot of drama to shots.
And if the weather’s good, outside photography featuring scenes in the neighborhood are good settings for a director shoot. It is a bonus if your office building is architecturally interesting, and you should use this to your advantage for your photoshoots.
The message here is that planning and careful preparation not only makes each photoshoot go well, it will provide plenty of new and unique stock to your corporate image library that can serve a multiplicity of communications needs during the year.
Here for all occasions
If this year you’re looking to refresh the photographs on your website or marketing materials, take on staff, launch new services or products, host events, speak at seminars, or hold staff parties and gatherings, we’re ready to capture these on camera and video.
Here are just a few images from the 300+ corporate photographic assignments we attended last year.
Please get in touch and let us know if we might be able to help you, we’re always delighted to offer advice about how to use our services to your maximum benefit.
WHAT’S IN STORE FOR 2025?
Thank you for using Piranha in 2024 which was our busiest year ever, taking on 30 new clients as well as serving many of our regular ones.
Never before have we handled such a breadth of interesting work, and we enjoyed the challenge of managing many larger scale commissions.
But it’s a New Year and it’s time to look forward and plan ahead.
If you’re looking to refresh the photographs on your website or marketing material, take on staff, launch new services or products, host events, speak at seminars, or hold staff parties and gatherings, we’re here to help you capture these on camera and video.
Here’s just a snippet of our work from the 300+ corporate photographic assignments we attended last year.
We hope your year ahead is productive, enjoyable and profitable.
And do please get in touch and let us know how we might be able to help you in 2025.
- About the Author
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Professional corporate photographer, providing company headshot photography and video for businesses in London, the rest of the UK and Europe. Piranha are commissioned by FTSE100 companies and start-ups alike, for numerous projects, covering a wide range of work and styles. Portraits and office photography for use on websites, events coverage and PR shots for press and publications, as well as Board and location photography for annual reports. Using top of the range Leica cameras and lenses. We process the images promptly and to an extremely high standard.
