Most team headshots are photographed in a company’s own office. This team works remotely, with people spread out and no shared workplace, so they booked a room at THIS Workspace in central Bournemouth and brought everyone together for one session.

It is a straightforward solution for a distributed team, but a hired room is not a studio. Most of the company and team headshots I photograph are in a client’s own office, so this one needed a slightly different approach. There are a few things worth getting right if you want the finished portraits to look like a consistent set.

Assess the space before setting up

The first thing I do is assess the space and identify the strongest position for the portraits. I look at the available light, the background, the sightlines and how the space is being used, then choose a position that gives the images a clean, considered look without disrupting the working environment.

Coworking spaces are designed for flexibility, but that does not always translate to strong portrait backgrounds. Glass partitions, signage, patterned walls and busy meeting areas can all compete for attention. The best position is often not the most obvious one, but a quieter part of the space that can be transformed into a clean, controlled portrait environment.

The right space, not the obvious space

I use my own lighting to create a controlled, consistent look in any environment. A large softbox gives me a broad, soft source that I can position precisely, keeping the light focused on the subject rather than allowing it to spill across the room. This is particularly important when working in spaces with coloured walls, low ceilings or other surfaces that can influence the light.

The light passes through two layers of diffusion before reaching the face, producing soft, gradual shadows rather than hard lines. The result is flattering, refined light that gives people a little more confidence in front of the camera, particularly those who are convinced they never photograph well.

The reason for controlling every element is simple. Everyone is photographed with the same considered lighting and setup, so the portraits work seamlessly together across a website, LinkedIn profile or pitch deck.

Consistent results, despite changing conditions

Windows introduce another variable. Over the course of this session, the sun moved around the building, changing the daylight in both intensity and colour.

I kept the key light consistent throughout and allowed the ambient light in the room to evolve naturally. This kept the faces consistent while the backgrounds shifted subtly. Each image was then adjusted individually in the edit to bring the set back together, rather than applying the same treatment across the entire series.

Photographing one strong headshot is relatively straightforward. Maintaining that same level of consistency across twenty or thirty portraits, while the conditions are changing around you, requires much more control.

We used Paul for team headshots in Bournemouth and he was incredible to work with. He was super friendly, very accommodating with our schedule, and the final photos are top quality. Highly recommended!

Madeleine Soden, Senior Designer at CUDO

If your team is remote

You do not need an office to get everyone photographed together. A suitable room in a coworking space does the job just as well, and for a distributed team it is usually simpler than arranging separate shoots in different places.

If headshots have been on the list for a while because there is nowhere obvious to do them, that is the answer. You can see more about company and corporate headshots, including team pricing and how the shoots work.