Philips Australia – a long-running client of Web Videos Australia requested a team shoot of fifty of their staff members.
I and my camera crew arrived on Friday, 11th December at Philips headquarters in North Ryde Sydney to capture some corporate headshots as well as team photos of Philips’ remote and interstate staff while they happened to be all in one location for a meeting.
This video clip is a behind the scenes look at what one might expect for corporate photography
We first discussed what types of shots they were after – whether they wanted landscape, profile, a textured background or a blurred out of focus natural backdrop.
For continuity, we decided to go for a textured wall background.
Originally we set up one of our mobile white backdrops with lighting and flash in one of the meeting rooms to make the shoot run along faster, but as it was such a beautiful day we decided to make use of the lovely natural light outside.
The team members came down one at a time, while my crew guided each person by the hand making them feel at ease – and making sure to take multiple shots at different angles to ensure a happy result.
Once we got through around 10 individual profile photos, to switch things up, we gathered that particular team and took an array of fun department team shots. This broke the tension with the staff making the rest of the individual photos more fluid.
This gave the photos a more relaxed feel which Philips was after – rather than a serious look.
For the team shots, we took them outside of the Philips building, making sure the light was right – without any glare or brightness. We positioned the groups for a nice composition team shot, making use of the company building branding.
The staff members spanned across several different departments including engineering and customer support.
Generally speaking – people don’t like getting their photo taken and can appear quite wooden without the right guidance. But we always get a great natural result by making our clients feel relaxed and at ease – and most of all taking everything in our stride with patience.
With the footage back at the editing suite, the imagery will be lightly airbrushed (unless there are any personal requests for extra work to be done), along with natural colour grading.