Rasor Rants | On-site Corporate Headshots in Winter

I had been wanting to dabble in corporate headshot photography for a while and the opportunity hadn’t risen yet. I threw out a model call to a local small business group and was invited to photograph this insurance company. They needed updated headshots as well as a team photo to be used on a billboard. What? A billboard? Am I ready for that?? They also wanted a “live background” with pops of color.

The session was in the middle of February, coming out of a VERY aggressive cold snap. Outdoors was not an option. I agreed to host the session in their office assuming there would be greenery and plants nearby, but there was not. Oh no! What now? I immediately spotted a handful of evergreen trees outside of the 2nd story window. I really like the leading lines of the office windows and went for it! I used a strip box to add a bit of a hair light to separate them from the background on their left and used a 36-inch softbox at an angle from the right to accomplish this lighting. Very proud of the lighting setup. Good job, me!

I used a similar setup for the team photo but, had the hair light off to the right of the subject and the softbox almost dead center. I wasn’t SUPER concerned with the background because I’m almost certain the subjects will be extracted for the billboard. I’m in disbelief that my image will be on a billboard!!! I’ll be sure to follow up if it happens!

Session lesson: Watch my crop. I later noticed I had cropped in too tight in camera leaving hands cut off in weird places.