Company team pages age badly. Someone left eighteen months ago and is still on it. Three people joined this year and are represented by a grey silhouette. Half the photographs were taken by whoever had the best phone, and the other half came from a proper session in 2019.
The end of the year is the natural moment to fix it, and not only for tidiness — there is usually budget that needs spending before it disappears.
Why Year End Is the Practical Time To Do This
- Remaining marketing or HR budget often has to be used before the fiscal year closes
- New hires from the year can be photographed in one go rather than one at a time
- January is when prospects, candidates and clients actually look at your site
- Teams are frequently in the office for holiday events anyway, so attendance is easier
If you are planning a holiday gathering, running headshots the same week is efficient — people are already in, and already dressed for it.
Consistency Is the Whole Point
A team page where every portrait was taken differently reads as carelessness, and that impression transfers to the company. Different backgrounds, different crops, different lighting and different years sitting in one row is the most common problem I am asked to fix.
The fix is a single session to one standard: same lighting, same background, same framing, same treatment. People photographed later can then be matched to the existing set rather than standing out. I keep the lighting specification for corporate clients on file for exactly this reason, so a new hire in March still fits the row.
On Site or In Studio?
| On site at your office | At the studio | |
|---|---|---|
| Staff time | Lowest — people step away for a few minutes | Higher — travel each way |
| Setup | A room with some space is needed for a few hours | Nothing required from you |
| Background options | Plain backdrop brought in, or your own space if it suits | Full control of background and light |
| Best for | Larger teams, or anyone hard to pull away from desks | Smaller groups, or when you want the environment removed entirely |
For most teams above about eight people, on site wins simply because the total staff time saved outweighs everything else. Details of the space are on the studio page.
How To Run the Day Without Losing Half a Morning
- Book per-person time slots rather than inviting everyone at once
- Allow a few minutes per person; it is quicker than people expect
- Send a short wardrobe note in advance — solid mid-tone colours, no large logos
- Put a mirror near the setup; it solves most last-minute worries
- Schedule anyone camera-shy early, before they have time to dread it
- Leave a slot at the end for the people who inevitably forget
Get More Than One Crop While Everyone Is There
A team session is the cheapest opportunity you will get to build a proper image library. While each person is in front of the camera it costs almost nothing to also capture a wider, three-quarter frame for speaker bios and proposals, a version with space for text for social posts, and a relaxed variant alongside the formal one.
The same visit can cover leadership portraits for the about page, and small group or department shots. More on individual sittings on the professional headshots and business portraits page, and realtor-specific requirements on the real estate agent headshots page.
Getting Camera-Shy Staff Through It
In any team of twenty there are three or four people genuinely dreading this. Ignoring that is how you end up with a team page where some portraits look tense and others do not.
- Schedule the nervous ones early, before anticipation builds all morning
- Keep the queue out of sight — nobody relaxes with eight colleagues watching
- Tell people they will see the back of the camera; knowing they can check removes most anxiety
- Allow a minute of talking before any photographs; expressions settle on their own
- Never tell someone to relax — it has the opposite effect every time
The practical trick is simply time. Five minutes is plenty for someone comfortable, and the difference for someone uncomfortable is usually ninety seconds of conversation before starting. Build that in rather than running a conveyor belt.
Four Mistakes That Make a Team Page Look Dated
- Mixed eras. Portraits from four different years in one row — the single most visible problem, and the one visitors notice first.
- Mixed crops. Some tight on the face, some from the waist up. Even with identical lighting, inconsistent crops break the grid.
- Phone photographs filling gaps. One snapshot among twenty professional portraits damages the whole set more than a missing photo would.
- People who left. It suggests nobody has looked at the page in a year, which prospects reasonably extend to everything else.
What Drives the Cost of a Team Session
Team headshots are quoted on the shape of the job rather than a flat per-person figure, and the variables are straightforward: how many people, whether it runs on site or at the studio, how many final images each person needs, and whether you want extra crops and group shots from the same visit.
Per person, a group session is substantially cheaper than booking individual sittings — the setup cost is shared, which is the main reason to do the whole roster at once rather than piecemeal. Send through your headcount and location and you will get a specific number rather than a range.
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions from HR and marketing teams booking a group session.
