Portraits or group pictures of board of directors and/or employees have always been the focus of corporate photography. A corporate photography session’s objective is to basically portray the energy and faces as the key driving force behind an organisation’s business in the most professional and creative way possible. More often than not, that calls for an environmental portrait approach to depict one’s surrounding working space to add context or convey a more formal environment.
I’ve done numerous corporate shoots with Rentwise‘s team over the course of more than a year, from shaping the ambient in large spaces for people to entirely rejuvenating a bare interior. To take the latter to the next level, it’s perfectly effective to inject some depth and variety in your corporate shots by using what’s available around and employing shapes and lines in the scene.
To further emphasize this, consider my latest shots of Joseph, Rentwise’s Accounts Manager. This shot took place at the office lobby and I was already at my wit’s end trying to figure out something new after many shots done here in the past. I kicked off with the simplest of shots; him against a white-turned-grey wall.
As it was a tight space, I couldn’t move him further away from the wall behind. This initially created noticeable wall shadow to camera left (due to my key light from camera right). I overcame this shadow by using a second speed light bounced off a nearby wall at an angle to camera left which killed this shadow and provided me much needed fill on Joseph’s right side of the face (camera left). This is one great idea on how to kill two birds with one stone: remove wall shadow and get a face fill.
Next, I had him seated on a chair in reverse while leaning forward for comfort. There was this new addition of a neat piece of furniture with notebooks on display. Initially, I tried to do away this piece in the frame but eventually ended up including it with the company Logo in the background. Here, I tried placing Joseph at a corner while taking great pains to ensure all the surrounding objects’ lines and shapes gelled in and converged on Joseph as the focal point.
I felt it all blended nicely together; the black shelf, couch, chair, Logo and the grey wall, with focus made on Joseph wearing a white shirt. I especially ensured that his head did not intersect with the shelf and Logo. I used three speed lights here. One key reflected umbrella to camera right on Joseph, a second bare-headed zoomed speed light at a very low power to provide separation between Joseph’s head and the wall (gave me a round halo effect behind his head), and a final speed light bounced into the ceiling to camera left, which provided an overall ambient fill.
Finally, I moved on to a nearby red couch and got a few shots of Joseph working on the laptop while seated on the floor. This may not be the most natural pose. I knew. It didn’t matter. I was using this as a stepping stone to another pose I felt was brewing in my head, which I wasn’t quite too sure yet then.
Then, it hit me; the adjacent pot of plant. I got really low and had Joseph seated on the couch working on the laptop with the slightest smile (on the far end). I used one of the overarching leaves to pull Joseph into the composition from the top, and the remaining blurred-out foreground leaves to hold him in the frame.
I used a shoot-thru umbrella speed light as my key light on Joseph and a second low-powered zoomed, feathered and bounced off the wall at Joseph’s right side of the face. This did a few things. The bounce helped filled Joseph’s right side of the face and helped pulled in some detail on his laptop from the feathering. The zoom ensured that his face wasn’t washed out uncontrollably. Additionally, this light also served to lighten the foreground by providing fill on the couch’s edge and backlighting the leaves. A final speed light was aimed toward the stairs in the background. Here’s the behind-the-scenes look at the setup employed.
For all the shots above, I was working at ISO 400 and f/5. Next up was Vanita, one of the Help Desk Service Executive. I shot this at ISO 200 (it was a tight space with a low ceiling), f/5 and 1/125 shutter speed. A bounce provided me general fill while a second shoot-thru umbrella speed light to camera right acted as my main light.
The final shot of Vanita involved a little more context. I had her stand outside her office overlooking the Rentwise warehouse below. To pull in more detail in my much larger ambient space now, I dragged my shutter down to 1/40 sec and hand held firmly against my face to burn in the surrounding while keeping my f/5. I also increased the ISO to 400 to help in the heavy lifting of my overall fill. Naturally, I had to dial down my bounced flash much more to compensate for the increase in ISO and closer working distance.
What turned out to be apparently just another simple corporate shoot had proven to be somewhat interestingly challenging to say the least. It’s always very fulfilling to be able to whip out something out of nothing.