How I shoot a corporate headshot session in 90 minutes

A 90-minute corporate headshot session covers about 8 sitters on a consistent brief. Here is the run-of-show, in case you are about to schedule one.

Before the day

We trade two short emails. The first establishes brief: what are the photos for (LinkedIn, About page, press kit), what’s the visual reference, what’s the aesthetic the rest of the brand uses. The second is logistics: arrival time, tethering setup, parking if you are coming to me.

I send the team a one-page wardrobe note in advance. (Here is the version I send.) Solid colors, two options each, no brand-new clothes.

Setup (15 minutes)

I arrive 15 minutes before the first sitter. If we are shooting in your office, I want a corner with a clean wall (white or neutral gray works), or a window I can position the team into. If we are at my studio, the kit is already standing.

Two strobes for clean light: one key, one fill. A reflector if the room cooperates. Tethered to a laptop so we can see frames as we shoot.

A folding stool for the sitters, set so the eye-line is at lens height. This sounds small. It is the difference between portraits that look like portraits and portraits that look like driver’s license photos.

The shoot (60 minutes for 8 people)

Each sitter gets about 7 minutes. Here is what those 7 minutes look like:

Minute 1: They sit down. We talk about something other than the photo. I take 10 frames at this point that I will not use, just to get them past the “I’m being photographed” face.

Minutes 2 to 5: We work through the brief. Forward-facing, slight angle, maybe a 3/4. I direct in plain English: “chin slightly down,” “shoulders back, then relax them,” “look just past my left ear and laugh at something.” Most people are stiff for the first 60 seconds. Almost nobody is stiff after that.

Minutes 6 to 7: I show them three frames on the laptop, ask if there is anything they want to try, shoot a few more. They walk out feeling like they were photographed, not processed.

If somebody hates being photographed (and there is always one), we slow down and shoot fewer frames more deliberately. The rule is the same: the picture you want is the one where they look like themselves on a good day.

Post (you get this in a week)

A first-look gallery within 48 hours. Each sitter sees their best 15 frames. They pick favorites; I retouch those.

Final delivery is per-sitter folders with two finished images each (one color, one black and white if the brief calls for it), at web resolution and print resolution. Plus a single brand-deck folder of group consistent picks for the website.

Color correction, exposure, and clean retouch are included. I do not over-retouch. If somebody had a breakout that morning, it goes. If somebody has a scar that is part of who they are, it stays. We can talk through edge cases.

What I do not do

I do not run a headshot factory. If your team has 60 people, we do it across multiple days, not by squeezing everybody through in a single afternoon. Quality drops past about 8 sitters per 90-minute block.

I do not deliver every frame. If I shot 1,200 frames across the team, you get the curated 100 that are usable, not the dump.

I do not do “AI headshots.” If somebody on your team needs a headshot and cannot make the session, we reschedule them, not run their face through a generator.

Booking

Email the team size, target dates, and where you want to shoot (your office or my studio). I will send a fixed quote within a business day. Pricing notes live on the FAQ; a longer overview is in what I charge for a photo shoot in NYC.

For more on the corporate side, see the corporate headshots service page.