What corporate photography covers, and what it does not
Corporate photography, on this page, means five things: executive and board portraits, internal events and all-hands meetings, imagery for an annual report or investor deck, conference coverage, and material for a boardroom rather than a party. It does not include day-to-day office culture or a team photo for the wall by reception. That is office and team photography, priced and built for a different brief.
A half day covers a handful of portraits and a morning of candids from a meeting. A full day might mean a CEO’s portrait before nine, conference and event coverage through the afternoon, and building shots for the annual report before the light goes in September. See corporate work from London offices for what that looks like once it has been edited.
What it isn’t: a wedding-style narrative, a fashion set, or three hours of staged laughing around a whiteboard. I turn up, work the brief fast, and leave, usually inside the half or full day booked. If your ask is “some nice photos of the team for LinkedIn” rather than a board pack or an annual report, the office and team page is built for that brief and priced for it.
Corporate photography prices
A corporate booking is priced by the day, not by the photograph, and the number moves for reasons worth knowing before you ask for a quote.
| Booking | What it covers | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Half day (up to 4 hours) | Executive portraits, a short event or a small team session | £250 |
| Full day | Executive portraits, all-hands, office imagery or conference coverage | £500 to £700 |
| Executive portrait session | One or two executives, formal portraits for a website or bio | From £250 |
| Add headshots to a corporate day | Individual staff headshots booked alongside a half or full day | From £150 per person |
| Annual report project | Portraits, building shots and verticals scoped to your report’s layout | Quoted after a short brief |
| Ongoing retainer | Regular portraits, events or updates through the year, booked in blocks | Quoted on request |
| Out-of-hours or weekend loading | Evenings, weekends or bank holidays | Loading added at quote stage |
| Travel beyond London | Anywhere outside the M25 | Confirmed once I have the postcode |
What actually moves the number: how many people need portraits, whether a second shooter is needed for a large all-hands, and how far outside Zone 1 the office sits. A twelve-person leadership team costs less to photograph than sixty staff headshots added to the same day. Weekend bookings and last-minute conference cover carry a loading, since I am turning away other work to fit you in. See full pricing across every service if you are comparing this against a headshot day booked on the same visit.
Executive and board portraits
A CEO gives you fifteen minutes. Four of those go on getting them to stop performing “photo face” and just stand normally. That is the real constraint on this job, not the kit, the clock.
Boardrooms photograph badly nine times out of ten: fluorescent panels overhead, a laminate table throwing a green cast, and a wall of frosted glass behind the chair. I move people to a corridor with window light, a stairwell, or a reception desk if it has a plain wall behind it. A 70-200 compressed against a clean background beats a wide shot of an impressive room every time.
- Solid colour over pattern: navy, grey or white photographs better than a check shirt or a bold stripe
- Matte skin, not shine: a powder compact in your bag saves a reshoot request
- Bring a jacket even if you shoot without it, since it changes the shoulder line in every frame
Send that list to whoever is booking the session. It is short enough to survive being forwarded.
How this differs from a headshot shoot
A headshot day means headshots from £150: one backdrop, one light set-up, five minutes per person, moving through a list. A corporate day is a moving brief across a building, portraits in one room, an all-hands in another, a hallway shot for the annual report on the way out. The pricing model differs because the deliverable count differs: a headshot day prices per person, a corporate day prices by my time.
Most companies asking for “some photos of the team” actually want headshots, not a corporate day. If everyone sits in the same office and you need one clean portrait per person for the intranet and LinkedIn, book the cheaper option. It is built for exactly that, and you won’t pay for coverage you don’t need.
Annual reports and investor materials
An annual report photograph has a longer life than most corporate images. It sits in a 20-page PDF for eighteen months, gets pulled into an investor deck, and turns up again in a press pack nobody warned me about. That changes how I shoot it.
Portraits need headroom for a caption running underneath, and enough negative space on one side for a pull quote to sit over the image without covering a face.
Building and office verticals get shot with a tilt-shift lens so the walls stay straight once cropped into a template. A wide-angle shot that looks fine on screen often bends at the edges once a designer works to it, so I shoot more verticals than horizontals on this brief. See shooting for an annual report for the fuller version, including how many frames to budget for.
Working with procurement: POs, insurance and access
This is the section that actually books the job. I carry £5m public liability cover, and employers’ liability if I bring a second shooter on site, with certificates for both supplied before the day and no chasing required. Invoices go out against a PO number if you supply one, on 30-day terms. I don’t ask for payment on the day, which surprises some finance teams used to smaller suppliers.
DBS checks apply if the shoot involves anyone under 18, an apprentice scheme photo day, say, and I’ll provide current certification on request. Exact requirements vary by employer, so agree this before booking rather than on the morning. NDAs get signed without fuss; most corporate clients ask before I even raise it.
Building access in the City and Canary Wharf is its own small project. Some lobbies do not allow a tripod without prior notice to security. Photo ID needs registering with the building a week ahead in a lot of towers, and a security escort above the ground floor is common practice. None of this is unusual. It just needs sorting before the morning of the shoot, not during it.
- Company name and PO number, if you are raising one
- Building address and any visitor registration system in use
- Whether a second shooter needs a building pass too
- Confirmation of any under-18s on the day, for DBS purposes
- An NDA in advance, if your legal team needs one signed before I arrive
Send that over when you book, and access on the day tends to be a non-event.
Culture and office imagery that doesn’t look like stock
Most advice on corporate culture photography says to stage collaboration: three people around a laptop, pointing at a screen, laughing at something that is not funny. I’d argue that is exactly why so much corporate imagery looks the same and convinces nobody. Everyone recognises a staged photo within a second, including the people looking at it on your careers page.
What works instead: a real meeting, shot from the doorway with a fast 35mm so I’m not in anyone’s eyeline, and twenty minutes where nobody is being directed. Flash bounced off the ceiling fixes flat office lighting without anyone noticing a flash went off.
The frames that get used are almost never the ones where people looked at camera; they’re the ones two minutes later once everyone forgot I was there. For moving footage from the same day, corporate video from £600 covers the same brief on camera. For more on the stills side, see team photographs that don’t look staged.
When a corporate shoot isn’t the right spend
A twelve-person company that needs headshots for email signatures and a LinkedIn refresh does not need a corporate day. Book the headshot service and save the difference. Same goes for a business mid-rebrand: if your office is being redesigned in three months, wait, because the photographs you commission now will look dated the moment the new fit-out lands.
Where a corporate day earns its price: a board pack going to investors, a conference with press attending, or an annual report with a hard print deadline. If you are not sure which camp you are in, how to compare corporate photographers covers the questions worth asking before you book anyone, me included.
Ready to book? send me your dates and building address and I’ll reply within one working day with a fixed quote.
Corporate shoots in the City
A large share of this work happens in EC2 and EC3, where access, security passes and lift bookings matter as much as the photography. If your office is in the Square Mile, corporate photography in the City of London covers how those shoots are actually run. For teams needing individual portraits rather than full coverage, headshot photography is the cheaper starting point.