I enjoy working with long-time small business teams because their fun working relationships make the final shots professional but still connected. Deciding to set up a photography day for your business teams can feel like a feat, but it’s not completely impossible! If you have a solid, long-term team you should get it done! There is nothing better than adding professional headshots of your team to your walls in the office, website, and social media. Most small business dentistry teams take at least one weekday off from seeing patients for administrative work; this is honestly the best day to choose for your photography day.
Bruce Mitchell Dentistry, here in Medford, Oregon, took a lovely Friday afternoon to accomplish their team photography needs. Making this a “staff fun day” is what can make a team photography appointment a success. Especially with connected, long-time business teams. In addition, the staff isn’t trying to look halfway decent after a day’s work or rushing to fit it in at lunchtime. When we started the planning phase, I suggested the Voorhies Mansion which doubles as the EdenVale Winery Tasting Room. The mansion itself is always well-groomed and organically landscaped. When possible, I like to pose teams where the subjects have the opportunity to have some variety with arm and leg placement and seating choices that will help with varied heights. It’s such a waste when the team just looks awkward with one another or their heights are distracting. The Bruce Mitchell Dentistry team was comfortable cramming together on the lovely steps of the mansion. This was my planned “Hero Shot” but we did take the opportunity of the location to capture alternative options.
When planning for business team headshots, I ALWAYS plan for a location where I can count on continuous flat light. There is nothing worse than having your lighting change mid, shoot where half the headshots have some creative sunlight and the other half have a different light — in addition to this method, if I need to add any new headshots throughout the year, I can always count on getting flat light again. And while I am using a single spot at the same location, I pay attention to varying my direction just slightly so that when the headshots are all aligned as a cohesive piece on a wall or website, they don’t end up looking like they all have a cookie cutter background. As you can see, the headshots look beautiful as a set, but not redundant.
Something to consider if you have the opportunity, is to make the business owner, in this case, the Dentist, Dr. Mitchell — stand out. I think it’s important to give this person a regular headshot, but take a moment to emphasize and celebrate their accomplishment in business with a few key shots. Give them that gem of a shot to showcase who they are in their business.
In Dr. Mitchell’s case, he’s in the world of Family Dentistry. While dentistry has come a long way in it’s approach to marketing and how people view going to the dentist, you would want Bruce here to appear as a genuinely friendly, non-scary person to come to… while also showing that he is a confident, knowledgeable person. Body language is everything when posing your people and not all people are equal when it comes to poses. I go with my initial template of ideas considering a person’s height, weight and how their personality is vibing. You may toss some shots and keep some, but at the end, a few extra shots can make a very happy client.
I make pricing pretty straightforward when I am working with business teams. I created a calculator for the number of individuals in your office with price breaks per headcount quantities. This works so well for me and my clients. We can easily price the shoot with a baseline and add or remove pricing as needed, by the time we get to the shoot, there are no surprises on either side for how much it will cost. I include one team shot when shooting business teams and then allow the client to upgrade to a miscellaneous shots add-on. The Bruce Mitchell Team wanted some added grouped shots of their staff and some casual fun shots. An upgrade does not have to be expensive but it definitely helps for expectations during the shoot.
Overall this was a fun early-afternoon activity for their office. Whenever I shoot at a local winery with a tasting room, I set the client up to contribute by purchasing wine. This helps support the use of the premises, but can also help with the nerves of some of the individuals. Obviously, make sure the entire staff isn’t drinking alcohol too far in advance of a shoot 🤣 — this was a very respectable group and they kept it light. I loved that following the shoot they had booked a team lunch outing at a local restaurant.
This is how team photo days should go! #NailedIt
