Corporate Headshot Photography

I recently came back from a 2-day location shoot in the UK doing corporate headshots for around 60 people, although we could have managed more per day (around 50). It was the perfect opportunity to write down notes on process and what I would do differently next time.

Choosing & arranging the space:
It was an ideal room, as it had been cleared of all furniture, had tall ceilings and we could easily control the lighting. I brought my own lights, but it was great to have a space large and deep enough to fit a backdrop and all the kit, as well as myself and an assistant. The backdrop was 3Wx2H so quite tall and wide. 

Backdrop materials and editing:
We used a physical backdrop but had issues getting it tense enough to be flat. In the end, it was still useful to have as it made cutting out the pictures using Photoshop AI much easier. The backdrop itself was in the right colour temperature, which again reflected the "right" kind of light onto the subjects. However, if we did it again, I would choose a disposable paper backdrop and order in a larger quantity, rather than a re-useable plastic one (which wasn't tense enough). That way there won't be issues with creases.

Posing:
I tried to encourage subjects to use their hands in a variety of ways - mostly whatever felt natural to them, especially if they were idling. They stood on a pre-determined mark on the floor which I made using a safety pin. The goal was to get them to stand as far away from the backdrop as possible to avoid shadows.

Prep time:
I need around 90 minutes to set up in the morning, and a few hours the night before to pack and check kit, charge batteries, clear out the laptop to make space for the new headshots. Pretty standard but always good to factor in as there is nothing worse than missing something in a rush!

Three strong lights:
I used two Godox FL-150 panels on either side of the subject, at an angle, and directed towards the background to light the colour backdrop properly. The left hand side light was stronger at 100% and placed at full height, whereas the right hand side light was low to the ground as a kick and only lit at 65%. The final and crucial light was the key light: a Godox SL100 with a softbox, placed at an ideal Rembrandt setup - high up and at a angle slightly on the left of the subject to be flattering (and not straight on). Due to the cool backdrop, the colour temperature on all was set to 4200K.

Standing on the case:
I brought a Pelicase with me to carry the kit, but it turned out to be extremely useful as I found shots taken from a slightly higher angle to be much more flattering. Obviously, with tall subjects, this case also became essential. Standing on it gave me better angles overall.

Turnaround times (M3 Max):

• Initial edits: 90 minutes; the initial pass of Lightroom editing with exposure, skin and teeth adjustments took 90 minutes for 2500 pictures, which is around 2 seconds per picture.
• Initial exports: 60 minutes; I then exported all these pictures to JPEG so I could make more accurate selections rather than previewing in Lightroom (which was slow even on an M3 Max), which took around one hour. I was hugely impressed with this, as it meant I could effectively have 2500x JPEG exports made in under three hours. With getting 75% of it right in camera, this means you can effectively have thousands of assets ready for sharing.
• Selections: 2 hours; I then made selections from these 2500 roughly edited pictures, which took me two hours as I studied each pose and subject in detail, wanting to give variety and optionality with only two pictures per person.
• Backdrop replacement: 4 hours; the backdrop replacement on 99 selected pictures, was more time consuming however, taking around 4 hours total as Lightroom struggled with going to and from Photoshop. Photoshop itself couldn't seem to handle more than 8 pictures at a time.
• Naming: 90 minutes; I then had to match the photos themselves to each person's name, which took around 90 minutes.

Lightroom masking:
One editing technique that saved me a lot of time was using Lightroom's subject separation and editing feature, as it meant I could proceed with non-destructive editing on specific subjects rather than changing the whole image as you would in Photoshop for example. The AI-powered masking features worked extremely well and I would completely rely on them.

Photoshop action:
Setting up the background replacement action in Photoshop was very easy, however. All I needed to do was put the solid background colour on my desktop, make that picture sized exactly the same as all the headshots so no resizing was needed, and then run the action I had set up using this background. All you need to do is "record" what you do on one picture (using the AI remove/replace background menu at the bottom of the picture).

Apps:
The main apps I used were Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom (modern, not classic), NameChanger, and ImageOptim.