Professional headshots for organisations: how to plan a shoot

Professional headshots are often the first time a partner, journalist or job applicant sees the people behind your organisation. They appear on the team page, in proposals, on conference programmes and next to bylines. When they are mismatched, out of date or taken against an office wall, they quietly suggest an organisation that is not paying attention.

Research supports investing in them. Nielsen Norman Group's eyetracking work found that users ignore stock photos of generic people but pay attention to images that carry real information.¹ On one team page in its study, a user spent 10% more time looking at the portrait photos than reading the biographies, and the article credits the fact that these were real people who work at the company.¹

Consistency is what makes a set of corporate headshots look professional. Before booking anyone, agree a short style sheet and show it to the photographer and staff. Decide whether you want a plain studio background or an environmental portrait in your office, garden or field site. Plain backgrounds are easier to match over the years; environmental portraits say more about your work.

Agree framing (head and shoulders, or waist up), orientation and the space left around the head for different crops. A square crop for social profiles and a portrait crop for reports can come from one photograph if you leave room.

• Background: colour or location, and how blurred it should be.
• Framing: head and shoulders or half length, eye level.
• Expression: relaxed and approachable, or more formal.
• Clothing: simple guidance, such as solid colours and no large logos.

A few technical choices make the biggest difference. Canon recommends prime lenses with a focal length of 50mm to 100mm for portraits because of their low distortion, and wide apertures such as f/1.4 or f/1.8 to create a shallow depth of field that separates the person from the background.² In our experience, a phone can do in a pinch, but a short telephoto lens is kinder to faces.

Soft, even light is flattering. Canon notes that natural light gives a soft and flattering glow.² For indoor sessions, the classic three-point set-up uses a bright key light, a dimmer fill light to soften shadows and a backlight to separate the person from the background; a large window can act as the key light, with a bounce card as the fill.³ Whichever you choose, keep the set-up fixed for the whole day so every photo matches.

Treat a staff headshot day like a small production. Book a quiet room with space for a background and lights, and schedule people in short slots with a buffer between them. Send the schedule and clothing guidance a week ahead, and give remote or field staff a separate date or a simple guide to follow with a local photographer.

Many people dislike being photographed. Canon advises keeping your subject interested and relaxed while shooting.² In our own practice, we chat while adjusting the lights, show people a frame on the camera early, and take a few relaxed frames before asking for the final pose. Name a coordinator who keeps the queue moving and records who has been photographed.

A recognisable photograph of a person is personal data. Rwanda's Law No. 058/2021 relating to the protection of personal data and privacy defines personal data as any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person.⁴ The Ministry of ICT and Innovation describes the law as built on clear and unambiguous consent to the collection, storage and processing of personal data, and names the National Cyber Security Authority (NCSA) as the supervisory authority.⁵

In practice, explain to staff where their photo will appear and for how long, record their agreement, and offer an alternative for anyone who prefers not to be pictured. The law also gives data subjects the right to object to processing and to request erasure of their personal data, so plan how you will remove a photo from the website and shared folders when someone leaves or asks.⁴ This is general information, not legal advice.

Ask the photographer for a full-resolution master and web versions cropped to your agreed sizes. Large files slow down team pages, especially on mobile data. Google's Lighthouse guidance explains that AVIF and WebP offer better compression and quality than older JPEG and PNG formats, so pages load faster and use less cellular data, and notes that older browsers may need a JPEG or PNG fallback.⁶

Add sensible alt text. The W3C's alt decision tree says an image that only repeats real text nearby should have an empty alt attribute, while a photograph that adds meaning needs a brief description.⁷ If the person's name sits directly under the photo, an empty alt avoids screen readers reading the name twice; if the photo stands alone, use the person's name and role.

Headshots age quickly as teams change. Name files consistently, for example surname, first name and year, and store them with the consent record and the style sheet. Plan a short top-up session once or twice a year for new staff, using the same background and light, so the team page never mixes styles.

Keep the style sheet with your brand guidelines. When you hire a different photographer, a one-page reference showing framing, background and an example image is the fastest way to get matching results.

• Style sheet agreed: background, framing, expression and clothing
• Quiet room booked, with a fixed lighting set-up
• Schedule and clothing guidance sent a week ahead
• Purpose explained and consent recorded for every person
• Alternative offered for anyone who prefers not to be pictured
• Master files plus web sizes in WebP or AVIF with a fallback
• Alt text agreed for the team page
• Top-up sessions planned for new staff