Why I run every company headshot session a laptop and a camera

As a London corporate headshot photographer, the most useful thing in my kit on a company shoot has nothing to do with the camera. It's the laptop sitting on a stand next to me. Every image I take is sent on that screen a second later, big enough to actually see.

I've done it this way since my very first company shoot, so it never occurred to me to mention it. Then last week the person who'd booked a shoot at a London firm, my main contact for the day, watched her photo appear on the screen and said, more or less, "I love this, why doesn't everyone do it?" It turns out not everyone does. So here's why I do, and why it makes your team's headshots quicker to run and better to look at.

See it big, adjust it on the spot

The screen on the back of a camera is a few inches across. You can tell someone is roughly in focus and roughly smiling, and that's about as far as it goes.

Connected to a laptop on a stand, that same photo is large enough to really see. I can see whether the eyes are sharp, whether the smile is genuine, whether a collar is sitting oddly or a strand of hair wants a nudge. So can the person in front of the camera.

That's exactly what my client liked last week. She could look at the shot properly, take it in, and we could make a small change there and then before moving on. A tiny tweak to a chin, a shoulder or the light, caught in the moment, is worth a great deal more than spotting it a week later when everyone has gone back to their day.

Your team chooses on the day, and you skip the admin

Because everyone can see their photos clearly on the laptop, each person picks their favourite there and then, before they head back to their desk. The decisions get made while I'm still in the room.

Now picture the usual way it goes. The photographer sends a proofing gallery a few days later. You, the office manager, forward it round to thirty-odd people, and then you chase them, one by one, to log in and choose. A good number will forget. You'll be sending reminders for a fortnight, and the whole project stalls on the people who haven't picked yet.

Selecting on the day takes all of that off your plate. There's no gallery to distribute afterwards, and no chasing a full team for their choices. It's how I recently photographed twenty lawyers at a Marylebone firm in a single afternoon, each of them choosing their shot before they went back to work.

It gets your images to you faster

There's a knock-on benefit too. Because the choosing happens on the day, I know exactly which image to edit before I've even packed the car. I can start work the next morning instead of waiting on a gallery to trickle in over a week.

That's a big part of how I keep the turnaround quick. I quote 10 days or so as a safety margin, but most teams have their finished headshots back within a week.

The bits you don't see it doing

The laptop earns its keep in a couple of quieter ways as well.

If someone mentions on the day that they'd like a stray hair tidied, or the glare taken off their glasses, I can flag that exact image and drop a quick note against it on the spot. Nothing gets lost in the gap between the shoot and the edit, and the person gets back precisely what they asked for.

And every tethered image saves to the laptop as it's taken. My camera already writes to two memory cards at once, so that laptop copy is a third, separate backup of your shoot, sitting on a different device before I've even left the building. For a day you can't easily reshoot, three copies of everything is the kind of peace of mind worth building in.

Part of the whole service

None of this is for show. It's one piece of the end-to-end service I care about as a corporate headshot photographer: I come to your office, keep the day calm and quick, let people see and choose their own shot on the spot, and get a consistent set of images back to you fast. The laptop is a small detail, but it's the sort of small detail that makes the whole thing smoother for the person who has to organise it.

If you're planning corporate headshots in London for your team, that's how the day runs with me. Take a look at company headshots in London, or read more about why so many firms have a London corporate photographer come to them on location. Tell me roughly how many people and a rough date, and I'll send you a clear quote and a plan for the day.

FAQ

Do we get to choose our headshots on the day?

Yes. Because we work off a laptop, everyone sees their photos properly and picks their favourite before they head back to their desk. There's no proofing gallery to forward round the office, and nobody for you to chase.

How soon will we get the final images?

Choosing on the day means I can start editing straight away. I quote around a 10 days as a safety margin, but most teams have their finished company headshots back within about a week.

Do you bring the screen, or do we need to set something up?

I bring everything, including the laptop and its stand. All I need from you is a bit of space in a meeting room or a spare office, and I'll set up around it.