A Brand Photography Day at Your Company: How It Works and What to Prepare

The most common worry before a brand day isn’t the result. It’s: “Someone will be standing in the office with a camera all day and nobody will get any work done.” The opposite is true – if the day is planned.

A brand day is not a photo appointment your team turns up for. It’s a normal working day with someone there to capture it. The difference between a day that delivers images for two years and one where everyone smiles awkwardly into the lens lies in the preparation – and that takes less than you think. Here is how I have run it with companies in Vienna and Lower Austria since 2013, and the list of what you actually need to prepare.

Two weeks before: the briefing

One conversation, 30 minutes, by phone or at your office. Three questions:

1. What are the images for? Careers page, LinkedIn, job ads, annual report, press – each use needs different formats and subjects. An image for a job ad is vertical and shows a workplace; an image for the annual report is horizontal and shows the site. If I know that in advance, both get made.
2. Who has to be in them? Management, department heads, the new team, the apprentices? That becomes a list of names and time slots – not because I need a schedule, but because the people do.
3. What must not be in them? Client names on screens, whiteboards with project names, restricted areas, colleagues who don’t want to be photographed. We settle that beforehand, not while I’m standing in front of the whiteboard.

Out of that conversation comes a shot list: one page that structures the day. You get it in advance and can strike or add.

The shot list: what a brand day produces

The order isn’t random. The morning belongs to the people, because that’s when everyone is in and still fresh; the rooms come at midday and in the afternoon, when the meeting rooms are empty.

Morning – people at work. I move through the departments and photograph what happens: the conversation at the desk, the meeting, the workshop, the lab. No directions, no “look over here”. These are the images candidates want to see on the careers page – because they look real. And they look real because they are.

Late morning – portraits. One spot with good light – a window, a quiet corridor, if need be a mobile studio setup I bring along – and then in sequence: five to ten minutes per person, consistent background, consistent light. That way the portraits of the management match those of the new colleague who joins in six months. Whoever is late comes later; nobody waits in a queue.

Midday – teams. Departments, project teams, the whole company in front of the building. This is the one moment everyone has to be there at once – which is why it sits where everyone heads to the kitchen anyway.

Afternoon – site and spaces. Reception, production, meeting rooms, terrace, the view. On a tripod, without people or with deliberately placed ones, depending on what the image needs. These are the images for the location page, the press kit and the one large print in the entrance.

Throughout – vertical. Around a third of all images are deliberately shot in portrait orientation. LinkedIn, Instagram and job ads need it, and a cropped landscape is rarely a good vertical.

What your team needs to prepare – and what it doesn’t

Needs to:

• The list of who is available when. This is the only preparation that takes real effort. One calendar entry per person for their portrait slot is enough.
• A contact person on site. Someone who knows where each team sits and can unlock a door. Doesn’t need to be with me all day – just reachable.
• Screens and whiteboards. Whatever can’t go public, cover or switch off beforehand. I don’t retouch client names out afterwards – it shows, and it takes longer than a cloth over the whiteboard.
• A short note to everyone. Two sentences by email: a photographer will be in on that day; anyone who doesn’t want to be photographed tells the contact person. That takes the nerves out and settles the privacy question.

Doesn’t need to:

• Tidy up. A desk with work on it is a better image than an empty one. Whatever shouldn’t be in the frame, I move out of the frame. Coffee cups can stay.
• Coordinate clothing. For portraits, only this: clothes you feel comfortable in, without large logos or fine patterns. For everything else: wear what you’d wear that day anyway. A team in matching white shirts looks like a stock photo – and that’s exactly what we don’t want.
• Practise posing. My job, not yours.
• Rearrange operations. I work with available light and a mobile flash kit that’s up in a minute. Meetings happen, phones ring, production runs. That’s the point.

After the day

Every usable image, consistently edited, the portraits with extended retouching, within 3 working days in a password-protected online gallery. Optimised for web and in the formats your team needs – the portraits additionally as a LinkedIn crop. Full commercial usage rights, unlimited in time and territory; what that means in detail is in the guide to copyright and usage rights.

And in six months, when three new colleagues have joined: one morning, the same visual language, the same settings. The new portraits match the old ones without anyone rebuilding the careers page. How a single day spreads across seven channels is in the guide to a multi-platform visual strategy.

In closing

Preparing a brand day comes down to a list of names and a cloth over the whiteboard. Everything else is my job. If, after the day, you feel like hardly anyone was there – it was a good brand day.