Post production work adding London cityscapes to studio headshots.

For years we shot these headshots on location in and around London and were open to whatever the weather would hold in store for us and the unfortunate client.

We now offer a service where we have a large collection of London cityscapes and we can drop them in behind your corporate headshot. This means we can eliminate the worry of the weather and dragging clients around London. We can shoot your headshot in our studio space or at your office. This adds the benefit of studio lighting and with clever balancing your headshot can look natural, professional and interesting.

Studio corporate headshot London

Background view over The City and St Pauls

Background view over The City

Background added with Photoshop make sure you blur the background image so it looks like it was shot on a long lens.

Careful to balance the light levels so the person appears to be in their office or boardroom with the background a little lighter.

For more examples please check out or corporate photographers London samples.

For years we shot these headshots on location in and around London and were open to whatever the weather would hold in store for us and the unfortunate client.

We now offer a service where we have a large collection of London cityscapes and we can drop them in behind your corporate headshot. This means we can eliminate the worry of the weather and dragging clients around London. We can shoot your headshot in our studio space or at your office. This adds the benefit of studio lighting and with clever balancing your headshot can look natural, professional and interesting.

Background added with Photoshop make sure you blur the background image so it looks like it was shot on a long lens.

Careful to balance the light levels so the person appears to be in their office or boardroom with the background a little lighter.

Origins of this process.

For many years we had been shooting the headshots with a London backdrop on site. Clients often wanted to be associated with where they worked and having the London cityscape behind their LinkedIn or company website photo was a perfect way to do this.

This was interesting work for our photographers but often we had to postpone or cancel the shoot due to bad weather which in London is very frequent. Our favoured area to shoot was looking back to the City from the view on the south of the Thames. This gave us a good background using St Pauls or The City skyline. This is a public area so no legal problems taking photos there but also this is a very popular area for tourism which made it sometimes unsettling for the sitter.

It was one commission in particular that gave us the need to add a London backdrop. This case was a guy who wanted to show he was in London but did not want the shot to look too touristy. He asked us to make the background very blurry ie out of focus which was something we often did but he insisted he wanted it very blurred. On looking at the results we thought that they were in fact too blurred and that the background was now not identified as London. We sent him the shots and he agreed and asked if we could resolve this for him. He was travelling abroad for a month and unable to reshoot but needed the headshot for his presentation.

We revisited the London location and shot the background less out of focus at the standard we would have originally planned.

I was now my job to lift the old headshot off the poor background and drop it onto the new one. For many years I had been doing this process in photoshop but normally from a studio shot on a white background but this was going to be harder as making the cut out look 100% natural was critical otherwise the whole process would be flawed. After spending many hours on youtube looking at different workflows I put a request on LinkedIn asking if any photographers had any suggestions. One of the guys I had work with for several shoots came up with a process we now still use and it allows you to feather the edge of the cut out which gives the headshot a near perfect clipping path.

Now when a commission comes in for a corporate London headshot background we always suggest the cut out process. We have a large library of pre shot London cityscapes which we allow the client to choose from. We often blur these in photoshop to attain the perfect match with the headshot. This does take extra time per commission with the added post production but the benefits to the client are massive and at the end of the day its all about giving clients what they require.

This last image is a great example of the cut out process. Look at the hair and how it looks against the sky.

Samples of recent corporate headshots captured on location in London offices using our professional mobile studio system.

Braiform contacted us and said their Global Board Members were meeting in North Acton London and thought that this would be a good opportunity to have everyone together and to get updated corporate headshots taken. Dan did this shoot and he focused on the lighting and the white background was added in post production.

Corporate office photography commission for our client LHH Penna at their refurbished offices in Gracechurch Street. Dan has worked with this client over the last couple of years and knows their style and requirements well. They asked us to come in and capture the feel and working environment of their newly fitted out offices and we spent a day with their staff capturing generic images of the daily flow of their business and how the new space worked for them.

He only recently began taking photographs, but has already won some awards as well as accreditations from the IPA and Sony World Photography Awards. "I’m a tireless metropolitan traveller," he explains. "My work is focused on finding unusual and urban wastelands: the quest of the human footprint in the Anthropocene era, captured through the lens of my sleek yet detached gaze."

Corporate photography commission for Skuld Services Ltd at their offices in Lime Street. We had captured some headshots for their website and had around 15 minutes left over and decided to shoot some generic office images for their photo library. The client asked for something a bit more creative so we used the corporate colours and from around the office to bring a contemporary feel to the office interior photography.

© Corporate Photography Ltd

Commission for Maintel at their offices in Blackfriars Road. They had sent us some sample shots from a previous shoot and wanted us to match the corporate branding colours that had been used in the background. We were struggling to find the right colour background screen to use and had decided to shoot the new headshots against a plain wall and then cut them out and drop them on a photoshopped background matching their corporate blue. When Dan arrived they were showing him into the boardroom so he could set up his lighting etc when they passed a feature wall in reception that matched their corporate colours. Dan suggested they do the shoot in the reception area as this would give them the exact match and save their budget being spent in post production work.

The sights and sounds of planes coming in to land in the Royal Docks are familiar ones to most people now – but just three decades ago, things were very different.

This year, London City Airport celebrates its 30th anniversary, and to mark the milestone, it has released 30 images – some previously unseen – to chronicle its history.

Putney's been around for a while; it's listed in the 1086 Domesday Book as Putelei. These days, it's a bucolic-feeling area of London, with Putney Heath and Putney Village to the south, and Putney Common to the north. It's also where the annual Boat Race sets off from.

Music fans, rejoice – a display of photographs taken by the legendary Patti Smith is coming to town. 

Great Pubs of London by George Dailey is published by Prestel.

All images copyright  Photographer Charlie Dailey.

As 2016 ends and we all look forward to what 2017 has in store for us all, we find Toad Hollow Photography has been looking all over the internet for links to share in their final post for the year.

Commercial photographer Chris Crisman was very interested when he heard a friend of a friend had left her job as a web designer in New York City to become a butcher in Philadelphia. Crisman thought this woman would be an ideal subject for a portrait. 

As we reach the end of 2016, we look back on what has been a turbulent year. News agency photographers have been at the forefront of major events around the world throughout the year, showing us the human face behind the stories. The IBTimes UK picture desk has chosen 16 photographers whose work continually impressed us throughout the year. 

Would you want to visit the towers? Free entry to take photos of London?

The two tallest buildings in London have been given the go ahead by Sadiq Khan in a final planning hurdle which occurred last night.

YOUTH CLUB is an organisation with the focus of preserving photos of youth culture and telling the crucial stories of teenhood that lay the foundation for who we become as adults. The past year has seen us collaborate with YOUTH CLUB to show Matthew Smith’s documentation of British anarchy, Gavin Watson’s skinheads and ravers, and Dave Swindells’ photos of 80s London clubs.

Jane England’s black and white portraits, featuring a young Vivienne Westwood and an ageing Eileen Agar, prove that subculture and youth aren’t mutually exclusive.

London photographs from this year.

London is arguably one of the greatest cities on earth, and as a home to more than eight million people, it's also one of the busiest. But if you take to the air and look at it from above, everything suddenly seems remarkably peaceful. 

Photographer Jason Hawkes has dedicated his life to photography, years of which have been spent snapping the world's most famous cities and landscapes from the air.

In the 1960s and ’70s, photographer Horst and writer Valentine Lawford were the world’s preeminent aesthetic power couple, celebrating the chic lives of society’s most glorious swans and turning lifestyle journalism into a modern art form

Photographer Alex Bartsch has reshot over 40 reggae albums and singles from 1967 to 1987 in their original locations. An exhibition and book of the project are planned.

An exhibition at Tate Modern gallery in London tells the story of modernist photography through a selection of classic modernist images from the 1920s to the 1950s. The Radical Eye: Modernist Photography from the Sir Elton John Collection brings together for the first time portraits of the American photographer, Man Ray

Even in the digital era, there are still those who shoot film and hand-develop all their photos. On the other hand, there are those who can’t even insert a film into an analog camera, but create stunning photos with a digital one. German photographer, Andreas von Grabowiecki, managed to combined analog with digital and create something beautiful.

A haunting Chinese wedding, sisters hanging out and a creepy cabbie among fascinating images shortlisted for street photography award.

Penny-farthing bikes, Teddy boys, Teddy girls and children playing in the street before the days of health and safety and digital devices are just some of the photos on show in a new exhibition of work by the late Ken Russell.

DOORTRAITS are the latest internet obsession, with Instagrammers sharing photos of mesmerising doors from around the world

Photographer captures stunning sunrise over London skyline from Broadgate Tower

James Burns snapped his incredible images from Broadgate Tower in Broadgate on Tuesday.

This is my favourite style of business photography. Corporate portraits make up a smaller percentage of our commissions but they are most favourite of our photographers. These were shot by Dan for Macro Currency Group at their offices in Mount Street Mayfair.

For several months we have been supplying a headshot service which allows clients to have their portrait taken and then we add a London backdrop in post production. We feel that we need to explain the process and benefits of this service as we feel its key advantages are being missed.

The best way to do this is to go over each step of the commission and show how this gives the clients a much wider choice of results than the conventional way of shooting a corporate headshot with a London City view behind them.

Many individuals especially if they work for international companies often require a headshot that features certain business districts of The City or West End being in the background of their profile photos. Traditionally we would arrange a date and meet with the client at the agreed location. This can work extremely well but is dependant on the weather. Wind, rain and even sunshine coming from the wrong direction would often be detrimental to the end results. We had been working on gathering a wide range of pre shot London backgrounds for use on another project and had the idea that we could produce much more consistent results for clients if we could drop the London background in post production. The major benefit with this method is that shooting at a clients office or our studio we have full control over lighting etc and the style has to look like the headshot was captured in an office with a large window with the view behind. This means the backgrounds we drop into the London headshot need to be shot with this style in mind. So for example you would not be able to use a pin sharp view of the City behind a pin sharp headshot as this would look false and not take into account the depth of field factor from the long portrait lens you would be using. Also very important would be the angle of the background you use as it will have to fit with the angle that the headshot has been taken at. You would not be able to use a view of London looking upwards to the tall buildings as again the portrait lens would not allow this view so all the backgrounds we have pre photographed are captured with these angles in mind.

Another great benefit is once the headshot is captured you can search over our photo library for a variety of backgrounds that suit the headshot or which can be used for different media or profile photographs.

If we go through the process from start to finish.

Client commissions London corporate photographer Dan to capture his headshot with a view to adding London scenes in post production. This is the process recently shot with a City client.

We attend the clients offices and set up lighting to capture initial headshot. We understand the background in this photo looks a mess but we are only interested at this point in capturing a well lit and professional headshot.

Then in post production we remove the original background and replace with a solid colour. This can be any colour and with white we can add a perfect web friendly white so that when the profile headshot is added onto a website it does not carry any hint of grey that is always captured when shot against a conventional white background. Sometimes the client is very happy with this result as the headshot looks professional and is ideal for use on LinkedIn or we can match a current corporate website background colour and drop that in for the individual.

We then email the client a range of backgrounds for them to choose from and then we add these to the headshot. We are not saying that all of them will work. You still have to take into consideration lighting and what is visually happening behind the headshot. We feel these samples work very well and you can reposition the client within the background to get the perfect composition and make the photograph look realistic.

This composition also works with a broad City backdrop

These last couple do not work as well. The first one has a problem I mentioned earlier, the background of the City is too sharp and clean and does not look in keeping with a headshot on a long lens. This combination makes the client look slightly 3D against the backdrop of London as both elements have different depth of fields which is not possible to do in camera.

This background is the opposite as it is too out of focus and does not look realistic as again the depth of field is incorrect and therefore the image looks false.

To finish on a positive note the headshot below is our favourite of the batch and shows with careful positioning and balancing the right background with the correct headshot you can create a professional and striking corporate portrait for all media.

Grantly Lynch © Corporate Photography Ltd

We recently covered an event for Confidence Capital Ltd at the Intercontinental Hotel in Park Lane. Jason was the photographer on the day and his work reminded me of how far event photography has moved on since I first started covering corporate events in the mid 90s.

Back in the day all photographers were still shooting on film and this had restrictions which light levels would dictate what could be achieved at most events and especially evening events. The standard and accepted way to photograph corporate events was to use medium format cameras with a on camera flash system and try and balance out the low level ambient light within the event location. This method meant most results were posed due to the size of the camera and the need to pose people so the flash lighting was direct and did not cause to many shadows and that it lit people in an even way. I was never a big fan of flash lighting and even less when it was on camera. In my opinion flash is a very harsh light and daylight balance which is never the best source of light when photographing people.

My preferred way of photographing people was using ambient light and catching natural poses with 35mm camera and a fast long lens. I had been using a fast B&W film for many years and by pushing it several stops I was able to shoot in most low level lighting conditions and get unposed photographs at corporate events which clients preferred as this method of working was much less intrusive without large cameras being moved around with flash lighting firing off during key points in the event proceedings. When I went out selling my event photography portfolio most corporate clients were very impressed with the photos and would ask me to quote on upcoming events.

This is where my style and process hit a problem. To shoot in an informal and reportage manner at events you had to shoot lots and lots of film. As it was 35mm you had not polaroid proofing system so you had make sure you had the shots the client needed by covering all aspects and all angles and basically shooting all the time with the knowledge that when the whole commission was edited down at least 10% would be great stuff and fulfil the clients needs. Shooting lots of film meant my quotes/budget were higher than the traditional method so I was only commissioned for key events within the business calendar and this restricted the growth of my event photography service. This brings me back to our recent event that Jason photographed and how the creation of high end professional digital cameras with very high quality file capture and pro software have allowed the contemporary event photographers to cover commissions in reportage way within the same price bracket as any other style of event photography.

Here are some samples from Jason’s commission and we can see from these three images how the camera’s digital sensor and the post production software has managed to level out the contrast caused by the harsh down lighters often found in commercial halls. The most common form of lighting are these small tungsten spotlights which are recessed in the ceiling and give out small pools of direct light in little patches around the building. These make taking photographs very tricky as a person under one of these lights has a very bright light coming directly down on them and this can cause harsh shadows on their face and especially under the eyes. These samples show how Jason has managed to cancel out this unpleasant lighting and come up with photos which have a good range of tones and thin shadows.

These next two sample images show that the contemporary style of reportage corporate photography in London can be captured by using a minimal amount of photographic equipment. No need for flash lighting and even using fast long lens with the aid of high ISO setting that no longer cause noise in shadow areas of the image. This allows Jason freedom to move quickly into positions to photograph key moments within the event in a non intrusive way.

This last image really brings home how good current software is at levelling out contrast. If you had been at the event the screen on the right of the person would have appeared much brighter and the speaker would have been in semi darkness as this would have allowed the projected screen image to have been seen clearly. We have levelled out the contrast so that the shadow and bright areas are visible and still look natural.

For further samples of Jason’s and our other corporate photographers work please visit our contemporary corporate photography page.