A Corporate Photo Shoot Challenge: Bringing It All Together..In More Ways Than One
Let's go behind the scenes of one of my first corporate photo shoots.
The challenge: My accounting firm, Edison-based Urbach & Avraham, hired me to rephotograph the staff, and to get a group shot, for use in brochures and on their web site.
The real challenge was the group shot. I have no problems making a team of accountants look great, but when none of them will all be there at the same time to be in the same shot...well, there's a bit of a challenge. Especially when one person absolutely had to leave by 10:30, and two absolutely couldn't be there before noon. And one of those two people, Jeff Urbach, is one of the two senior partners.
Fortunately, Photoshop is my friend.
Here's how I solved this: First, I did a series of group shot of the seven, including the individual who had to leave early. I left room for the latecomers. Everyone was on board with the plan, and even had some fun with it.
Here are selections from the group shots and if it looks like someone's missing, that's deliberate.
The safe shot.
The goofy shot.
Who are they looking at?
I shot several variations and left room for two more. When done, I carefully marked the spot where I placed the tripod, then set up and shot the individual portraits.
After the individual portraits, Jeff and Aryeh arrived. I re-set the camera and lights on their marks, and shot the pair at the end of an empty conference table.
The safe shot.
The (not so) goofy shot.
Talking to himself?
Finally, I brought everything into Photoshop, and combined the images. Here are the results:
The safe shot.
The goofy shot. Yeah I chose a different shot of the "early six" for the final version.
All together now!
Of course, I had some interesting learning moments making sure the images blended well but hey, learning is what this is all about! Oddly, cleaning up the reflections in the conference table was one of the biggest challenges of the project! My client loved the end result, which now appears on their web site.
I had to be a bit creative to make this work, but the moral of the story is that there's always a way to solve a visual problem—especially if you have Photoshop!
If you need team photos of your company and/or individual headshots, drop me an email at masonresnick@gmail.com
For the photo geeks: Photographed with Canon 7D, Canon 24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Flashpoint 1200 light kit.
The challenge: My accounting firm, Edison-based Urbach & Avraham, hired me to rephotograph the staff, and to get a group shot, for use in brochures and on their web site.
The real challenge was the group shot. I have no problems making a team of accountants look great, but when none of them will all be there at the same time to be in the same shot...well, there's a bit of a challenge. Especially when one person absolutely had to leave by 10:30, and two absolutely couldn't be there before noon. And one of those two people, Jeff Urbach, is one of the two senior partners.
Fortunately, Photoshop is my friend.
Here's how I solved this: First, I did a series of group shot of the seven, including the individual who had to leave early. I left room for the latecomers. Everyone was on board with the plan, and even had some fun with it.
Here are selections from the group shots and if it looks like someone's missing, that's deliberate.
I shot several variations and left room for two more. When done, I carefully marked the spot where I placed the tripod, then set up and shot the individual portraits.
After the individual portraits, Jeff and Aryeh arrived. I re-set the camera and lights on their marks, and shot the pair at the end of an empty conference table.
Finally, I brought everything into Photoshop, and combined the images. Here are the results:
Of course, I had some interesting learning moments making sure the images blended well but hey, learning is what this is all about! Oddly, cleaning up the reflections in the conference table was one of the biggest challenges of the project! My client loved the end result, which now appears on their web site.
I had to be a bit creative to make this work, but the moral of the story is that there's always a way to solve a visual problem—especially if you have Photoshop!
If you need team photos of your company and/or individual headshots, drop me an email at masonresnick@gmail.com
For the photo geeks: Photographed with Canon 7D, Canon 24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Flashpoint 1200 light kit.
Comments
Post a Comment