Somewhere in your inbox there’s a two-line email: “Can you sort out headshots for everyone? The website photos are all over the place.” If it landed with you, take a breath. Here’s the whole job, in the order you’ll actually do it.
An on-site headshot day is the easy version. I bring the studio to your office, your team books short slots, and by the end of the day everyone’s staff photo matches. You don’t need to know anything about photography. You need a date, a room, and a sign-up sheet.
Why bringing the photographer to you works
Nobody has to leave the building. No driving across town, no mileage claims, no one suddenly working from home that day. Each person is away from their desk for a few minutes, and that’s it.
It also means your photos can actually look like your workplace. I can set up a clean backdrop for a classic, consistent headshot, photograph people in your own space (at a desk, in the boardroom, by a window) for a more natural, branded look, or do both. Most teams use the backdrop shots for the staff page and the environmental shots for LinkedIn, proposals, and social media.
And here’s the part nobody expects: turnout. Put a photographer in the boardroom and even the camera-shy show up, mostly because there’s nowhere left to hide. You get the whole team, not the same twelve volunteers who always say yes.
How long it takes
Five to ten minutes per person. That covers a few poses, a quick look at the screen, and a retake when someone blinks.
Twelve people is about two hours of shooting. Twenty people is a comfortable half day. Thirty or more, plan for the full day. Leave a bit of slack at the start for setup, and a bit more for whoever’s meeting runs long. There will be someone. There always is.
When to book
Start four to six weeks out. Leave it later than that and you’re squeezing into whatever date is left, which tends to be month end or the day half your staff are at a conference. The lead time helps in another way too: people hear about the day more than once before it happens, which quietly does your turnout a favour.
If a website relaunch or a batch of new hires is what’s driving this, count back from that date and book the shoot before anything else.
Choosing the space
You’ve already got the room. A conference room is the usual pick. The break room works fine outside the lunch hour. Even a quiet corner of an open office does the job, as long as people can be routed around it.
What I need is pretty modest: one power outlet, enough floor space for a backdrop and lights with a few feet between the chair and the camera, and a background that stays clear. If the sun blasts through the windows, blinds are handy, but they’re not essential. I bring the lights, so a bright room is a bonus, not a requirement.
One thing worth knowing for the room booking: I arrive thirty to forty-five minutes before the first slot to set up, so the room is spoken for a bit longer than the shoot itself.
Sign-up slots run the day for you
Don’t build the schedule yourself. Send out a sign-up sheet with ten-minute slots and let people pick their own. They’ll choose the gaps between their meetings, nobody queues in the hallway, and the day barely touches your calendar.
You can see who’s booked and who hasn’t at a glance. The empty gaps turn out to be useful too. Someone always wants a retake, and there’s always an executive who frees up unexpectedly and can slide into a hole. By the end of the day, the sheet is also your proof that everyone got done.
Name a point person
Pick one person on your team to be the contact on the day. A name, not a department. Their entire job: send the reminder the day before, glance at the schedule now and then while things are running, and knock on the door of anyone who’s forgotten their slot.
It adds up to a few minutes of their day, and it stops the schedule leaking away in five-minute delays. If that person is you, that’s fine too. At least you’ll know exactly where things stand.
What to tell the team
One email, about a week ahead, and keep it short. Short emails get read. Date, room, the sign-up link, how long a slot takes, and a link to some prep advice. That’s all anyone needs. Steal this one:
Subject: Headshot day, [date]
Hi everyone, we’re updating the team photos for the website. A photographer will be set up in [room] on [date]. Grab a ten-minute slot here: [sign-up link].
Wear what you’d wear to a client meeting. If you’d like tips on preparing, this helps: “How to prepare for a headshot session”. Can’t make that day? Let [point person] know and we’ll find another option.
What it costs
I price headshot days by the number of people, with one setup fee for the day, so the per-person cost goes down as your team gets bigger. Send me your headcount and your preferred dates, and I’ll send you a quote.
After the day
You’ll get one gallery link within 14 business days. Each person picks their favourite shot, which get a light retouch, and the finished files come back in a digital gallery for you to download.q
Because the whole team went through the same setup, the staff page finally looks like one team, instead of a collage of conference selfies and heads cropped out of group photos. If someone was away that day, it’s not a problem. We do a short catch-up visit with the same setup, and when new hires start, they can be photographed to match. The page stays consistent instead of drifting again.
Ready to book?
If this has landed on your desk, that’s genuinely most of it. I run headshot days across South Delta and the Lower Mainland. Pick a date about a month out, book a room with an outlet, and I’ll bring the studio to you.