Professional portraits are an effective way to put your best foot forward, both as a team and as an individual.
How do you “break the ice” when your prospective clients maybe feel nervous about next steps? A portrait is the perfect ice-breaker. A prospective client is searching for someone like you online… they find your website… they click on the ABOUT tab… and THERE YOU ARE! Your portrait is like a first HELLO before someone emails or calls to take the next step. And all it really takes to take that step is comfort.
I fully believe that headshots and team photos help companies make sales and win contracts, but it also helps to be the top legal team in your region. Say HELLO to Albers & Associates. They are a top rated and reviewed legal firm (Check out all their amazing client testimonials!) with locations all throughout Central Maryland, including:
- Baltimore City
- Columbia, MD
- Dundalk, MD
- Phoenix, MD
- Towson, MD
- Westminster, MD
Founder & CEO Ross Albers is also a fantastic team leader. As a fly on the wall many mornings over the last few years, I have overseen how Ross leads his team through effective meetings and exercises, and he truly pumps his team up and encourages them to rave about each other. I have also enjoyed overseeing how welcoming he is to new team members as I prepare to take their portraits for the first time. I can only imagine that behind closed doors, Albers & Associates is a team that is truly great to be a part of.
Over the years we have kept their team headshots pretty traditional with a blue studio backdrop and 3-point lighting (the samples above are from 2018-ish – our first time working together). But the last couple years we have been approaching the team’s group portraits differently, and I love it.
Their team is on the go… all the time. It’s probably impossible to get all the right team members together for a group shot these days. And think about all those man-hours wasted to pull everyone from the different offices – the travel time alone could waste 1 to 2 man-hours per person.
So instead, today we now photograph each team member each individually. Each team member is posed, one-on-one with me. After photo day, I make the images “green screen” by making the backgrounds transparent (a little added Photoshop magic on top of retouching).
The first rodeo using this method, I composited the team photo for Albers & Associates myself. It took a little finagling and micro movements and careful shading to give the illusion of believable layering. But I think we nailed it:
Now when new team members are onboarded, we don’t need to get the whole team together again – I only need photos of the newbies! I feed the new full-figure portraits to Albers & Associates’ web firm, and they handle the composite updates.
The result is that every single team member looks their very best, every time the team photo is updated. There is no compromise to find the “best” shot among many attempts where not everyone looks their very best. And bonus, we saved everyone time, and the team portrait can be updated more regularly. Even with changes over time, the results are consistent and everyone looks KILLER!
With an approach to group portraits like this, the cost is higher at the start. But as I return to photograph new onboards, this method will save this organization so much money by saving the valuable time of their employees. If you have a large team, you might want to consider the same approach: a composited team portrait.
