I had the opportunity to create photography with Paul Kroner, an extremely talented and experienced brand designer out of Cambridge, who was rebuilding the brand for Casner and Edwards, a venerable law firm in Boston. The company was going through a generational change and wanted to update their marketing to reflect that the firm was filled with young and talented lawyers.
The Challenges for a Law Firm Pictures
Our challenge was to create a series of portraits that could be used for advertisements, brochures, presentation pdfs, and, of course, their web site.
But, the individuals that make up the groups that worked in each practice area were flexible and interchangable.
And, we needed both group images and singles for all of these other collateral and advertising pieces.
Oh, and their firm has 43 lawyers.
Of course, getting this many busy individuals together to cover all of the variations of the groups would be difficult, at best.
Actually, it would be pretty much impossible. But, all was not lost!
A Solution to Scheduling a Photoshoot
We decided that the most flexible methodology was to photograph each person, as a single full length portrait, from three views: straight on, turned slightly left and turned slightly right. By locking off the camera and lights, and shooting on a neutral background, we would generate a library of different portraits that would match up when Paul started building the pages and advertisements.
While this solution is not right for every situation, it was perfect for scheduling the lawyers for their photography sessions and getting the most flexible sets of portraits together for the library.
The Scalable Photoshoot
Another challenge faced by businesses is how to add people to their growing businesses and keep the same branded feeling to the new hires’ headshots. Especially in this case, where new lawyers not only need new headshots but want to be available to be in the company’s ads and collateral. To achieve this, we mapped out the actual settings and placement of lights and camera so that we could reproduce the same set in the studio.
The Team for Law Firm Pictures
Hilary Warner and Lisa Roche joined us as the grooming/makeup/wardrobe touch up team and we worked with each individual for about an hour on set, building a great library of expressions and poses, over the course of three days. Using two grooming professionals meant that we had one person working with the lawyers to pick wardrobe and make sure to reduce shine and tweak hair, while the other was on set making sure that everything was perfect so we could avoid the costs of retouching.
In the end, the Law Firm Pictures built a large flexible photo library that could be continued and scaled up as new hires came into the firm and that would be useful for future advertising programs to promote the culture of the firm.
Do you have a firm that is going through a rebranding process? Need to update those bio pages so that your team looks like they work together? Reach out and let me know.
Related Stories from the Studio . . .
Hey Ma! I'm on the radio! Check out this interview for Winning Business Radio, where host Kevin Hallinan interviews me about the busines of photography.
The CEO Portrait session for Seaside Therapeutics' Randall Carpenter
Creating a marketing consultant's brand in portraits for a web site overhaul takes a little bit of thought and planning to target the right audience.
Actor Brett Leigh stopped by for some dramatic headshots. We went heavy on the drama!