Look at a whole job, not a highlight reel
Anybody can show you six good frames. Ask instead for one complete piece of work: a full team page, an entire conference, a whole office day. Then look at the weakest picture in it. Holding thirty portraits to the same background, the same crop and the same skin tone is a much harder skill than making one striking portrait, and consistency is what your marketing team will actually be judged on. If a photographer can only show singles, they probably have not run a rotation of thirty staff through a meeting room before lunch.
I would also look for rooms like yours. A glass-walled floor in Canary Wharf with tungsten uplighters on one side, a bank of LED screens on the other and north light pouring through the windows is a nasty mix of colour temperatures. Portfolios shot entirely in white studios tell you nothing about whether someone can handle that. Ask directly: what did you do about the lighting in this one? A working photographer will have an answer in about four seconds.
The seven questions, and the answers that should worry you
Print this, or paste it into the email. Each question is designed so a vague answer is immediately visible.
| Question | A good answer | Red flag |
|---|---|---|
| Can I see one complete team set? | Sends a gallery of 20 to 40 portraits, matched background and crop. | Only individual favourites, or a promise to send links later. |
| How many people can you shoot per hour? | Twelve to fifteen, with a booking sheet and five-minute slots. | As many as you like. Vague numbers mean an overrunning day. |
| What public liability cover do you carry? | £5m, certificate emailed the same day. | I have never been asked for that. |
| What backup gear is in the bag? | Two bodies, dual card slots, spare flash and batteries. | One camera, one card, no plan B. |
| What licence do we get? | Written: worldwide, unlimited internal and marketing use, in perpetuity. | Nothing in writing, or per-image web fees appearing later. |
| When do we get the files? | Full edited set in 48 hours, same-day selection if press needs it. | Two to three weeks with no preview. |
| Can you invoice on a PO with 30-day terms? | Yes, and will sign your NDA. | Cash or personal transfer only. |
None of these are trick questions. They are the things that decide whether the day runs smoothly, and every one of them can be answered honestly in a sentence.
Insurance, backup bodies and the boring resilience questions
Public liability cover between £1m and £5m is standard, and most City buildings will want the certificate before they let anyone past the barriers. So will the majority of venues. If a photographer cannot email you a PDF within the hour, they either do not hold cover or have never been asked for it, and neither answer is comfortable. Some landlords also want a method statement for lighting stands in a public lobby. Slightly absurd, occasionally unavoidable.
Backup matters more than people expect. Two camera bodies, dual card slots writing every file twice, spare batteries, a spare flash and a spare sync trigger. A shutter failed on me mid-morning at a law firm off Chancery Lane and the second body came out of the bag while the next person was still walking down the corridor. Nobody noticed. Ask what happens if the photographer is ill on the day, too. As a sole operator I will tell you plainly that I keep two or three trusted people who can cover a date, and that this is the honest trade-off of hiring one person rather than an agency.
Usage rights are where cheap quotes get expensive
Under UK law the copyright sits with the photographer unless it is assigned in writing, so what you are buying is a licence. That is not a scam, it is just how it works, and a decent photographer will spell out the terms without being chased. What you want is simple: worldwide, unlimited use across your website, social channels, press, recruitment and internal decks, with no expiry and no per-image fee.
The quotes to be careful with are the ones that look cheap because the licence is narrow. Web only. One year. Extra for press. If you are a recruitment-heavy business putting staff portraits into job adverts and LinkedIn campaigns, a restricted licence will cost you more in year two than the shoot did in year one. I do not charge separately for usage on corporate work and I would question anyone who does at this end of the market.
What a proper quote looks like
A quote of one line is not a quote, it is a number. Ask for something that names the following:
- Hours on site, and what happens if the day overruns.
- How many people or rooms are covered, and what a second location adds.
- Whether an assistant or second shooter is included, and whether you actually need one.
- Number of edited images and the level of retouching (skin tidy, stray hairs, blemish removal, not reshaping faces).
- Delivery format, gallery link, file sizes and crops for web, print and social.
- Licence terms, travel, and payment terms with a PO reference.
My own corporate photography starts at £250 for a short session, and team headshots from £150, but the number matters far less than what sits underneath it. Two quotes that look £200 apart are often £600 apart once licensing and reshoots are counted. There is more on that in my breakdown of headshot costs in London.
Getting into the building is half the job
This is the part that never appears in portfolios and always appears in the day. City towers want names, photo ID and often a company registration submitted 48 hours ahead. Lighting stands and a rolling case do not go through a revolving door, which means finding the accessible side door and someone with a pass to hold it. Loading bays run on twenty-minute unloading windows and a booking reference. There is effectively nowhere to park in the City, and the Congestion Charge plus ULEZ apply before you have taken a single frame.
Ask a shortlisted photographer how they handle this and you learn a lot. The right answer involves a question back at you: who is my contact on the floor, is there a lift I can use with a case, and can I have the building’s requirements a week out? If someone shrugs and says they will just turn up, expect the first hour to disappear at reception. I work across the City and the West End constantly and still build in a buffer, which is one reason I list a central London base rather than pretending travel is free.
Consent, NDAs and the slide you must not photograph
Staff photography sits under GDPR, and the cleanest approach is a short internal note explaining what the images are for, where they will appear and how someone opts out. Nobody should discover their face on a recruitment banner by accident. On the day, a name badge or a marker on the booking sheet is enough to flag anyone who has opted out. It costs nothing and it prevents an awkward conversation later.
Confidentiality is the other half. I have signed NDAs for legal and fintech clients where whiteboards, screens and pitch decks were strictly off limits, and where every frame was reviewed before delivery. If a photographer looks blank at the mention of an NDA, they have not worked with regulated clients. Ask before, not after.
If I were doing the hiring
If I were choosing, I would shortlist three photographers, ask each for one complete job and one insurance certificate, and then have a fifteen-minute call. The call tells you more than the portfolio. You are hiring somebody to stand in front of your chief executive and put them at ease in four minutes, so how they talk to you is a fair proxy for how they will talk to your team. Price third, not first. And I would not pay for a second shooter on a straightforward headshot day. Unless you are running two rooms in parallel or shooting an event alongside, one experienced person with a proper rotation is faster than two people negotiating who does what.
If you want a look at how photo and video fit together on a single visit, my corporate video page covers that. Otherwise send the brief, the building name and the number of people over on the contact page, and you’ll get an honest estimate of how long it takes.