Category Archives: Corporate Photography

Cavendish rebranded from BECG Group commission fresh and up-to-date corporate headshot & lifestyle photography

Posted by Richard Boll on 8th March 2024 – 2:04 pm

Filed under Birmingham, Commercial Photography, Corporate headshot photography London, Corporate Photography, Corporate Portraiture, headshots, Location Photography, London, Southampton

Cavendish

Cavendish (formerly the BECG Group) is a multi-award-winning communications consultancy that specialises in working with corporate and political organisations. Their recent rebrand has unified the Group’s four sub-brands: BECG, Cavendish Advocacy, Liberty One, and LoveThat, marking its journey to become a full-service international communications consultancy.

With a 150-strong team of consultants, their collective knowledge, abilities, and expertise span many different sectors, including Energy & Utilities, Infrastructure, Property, Health & Wellbeing, and Fast-moving Consumer Goods (FMCG).

By combining the company’s specialist corporate communications, public affairs, digital engagement, and creative services teams, the new Cavendish brand will offer its clients a fully integrated solution with the ability to deliver impactful, multi-discipline strategies and campaigns.

Corporate Headshot & Lifestyle Photography

Over 3 consecutive days, I visited the Cavendish Headquarters in London and two of their regional offices in Southampton and Birmingham. I produced a wide range of corporate headshots and lifestyle photographs of their employees that were commissioned to update and reflect their new branding.
The images that were generated combined a range of photography including staff working in their offices, having creative meetings, socialising, and going for walking meetings outside. I also took a range of corporate office lifestyle photography of office interiors and exteriors.

Day 1: Southampton

Day 2: London

Day 3: Birmingham

The 3 day shoot

In all of the locations, we took pictures inside the offices as well as outside to get the benefit of natural light. During the shoot in London, we took photographs in Westminster due to Cavendish’s specialism in working with political organisations.

As part of this shoot, I also arranged for a hair and makeup artist who I’ve worked with before to be on hand for the headshot photographs. The headshots taken have multiple uses. Cavendish can use the images for their website, and also for LinkedIn profiles, presentations, promotional and marketing materials, editorials in magazines, etc.

A video crew was also in attendance on these shoots creating content at the same time. Combining two mediums to get moving footage and still images is a fairly common scenario on the corporate photography shoots I carry out.

Corporate Lifestyle Approaches

There are two main approaches I tend to use for corporate lifestyle photography. One approach is to take ‘fly on the wall’, documentary-style photographs showing people naturally working at their desks or engaged in meetings around the office. The other is to set up mini scenarios which could be between 2 and 10 people. For example, arranging staff to sit together in a formal meeting, having creative conversations about specific projects, or social scenarios with colleagues meeting up for coffee or having breakfast in the offices. It’s good to mix up these photography approaches to show different sides of office life.

The 3 day shoot was really enjoyable and it was great working with the Cavendish team on this rebranding project, and to see the images being used so extensively throughout their website.

To find out more about the new Cavendish brand, visit their website and see more examples of my corporate lifestyle photography work.

Derwent London commission corporate team portraits for Annual Report

Posted by Richard Boll on 9th November 2023 – 3:43 pm

Filed under Corporate Photography, Location Photography, London, Portrait Photography

Derwent London Plc

Group corporate portraiture by Richard Boll Photography commissioned by Derwent London.

Derwent London’s ethos has always been distinctive and design-led. From modest beginnings, they’ve grown steadily to own a portfolio of 5.4 million sq ft (507,200 sq m) of commercial real estate, (predominantly in Central London) valued at £5.2bn as at 30 June 2023.

Based on Savile Row, they are the largest London office-focused real estate investment trust (REIT). Recently named in the ‘Sunday Times Best Places to Work List 2023’ in the medium-sized organisation category, 91% of their employees said they were proud to work there. 88% enjoy their job and 86% felt they were employed in a well-run organisation.

I was recently commissioned to photograph several corporate team portraits, in and around three of their London-based commercial properties, for their 2022 Annual Report & Accounts.

Annual Report & Accounts 2022

The 2022 Annual Report published on their website, is the third Derwent London Annual Report that I’ve taken photographs for since 2019.

For the images in this report, I worked closely with an Art Director and together, we visited some of the recently completed properties in central London to find visually interesting with aesthetically strong compositions.

Corporate Group Portraits for Derwent London

Derwent requested group portraits of their various teams from the following departments:

Finance
Health and Safety
Leasing and Marketing
Valuation and Investment
Asset and Property Management
Development and Sustainability &
Building Management, Facilities, and H & S

A corporate portrait of four people taken for Derwent London by Richard Boll.

It was a logistical challenge to get this number of people lined up and available for the shoot requiring meticulous advance planning.

A group portrait taken in London for Derwent.

Group portraits are always interesting to photograph and come with their own set of challenges. Initially, the challenge is to scout for suitable locations which could be an elegant room or a grand reception area. The challenge then becomes how to compose and photograph numerous different people within that space to create an effective photograph.

Group corporate portrait taken for Derwent London Annual Report.

It’s important to ensure that everybody in the photograph is looking at the camera with their eyes open, which can be a challenge when you have a significant number of people to position and photograph. The whole process typically takes much longer than photographing an individual portrait or headshot.
The Derwent London employees are great people to work with and this is a corporate photography project that I always find really enjoyable.

Find out more about Derwent London by visiting their website and seeing other corporate portrait and lifestyle photography projects I’ve worked on.

There is more to Corporate Photography than Headshots.

Posted by Richard Boll on 1st March 2023 – 1:23 pm

Filed under Corporate headshot photography London, Corporate Photography, Corporate Portraiture, Editorial Portrait, headshots, Studio Photography

When people think about corporate photography, they often see it as limited to either company portraits or headshots taken of CEOs, senior leaders, and employees. But there is much more to corporate photography than just business headshots.

As a commercial and editorial photographer, I often get asked to photograph a wide range of other corporate lifestyle and ‘behind-the-scenes’ aspects of a business including:

• people working, having meetings and discussing ideas, and socialising at work

• office interiors

• architectural details of the outside of company premises

• annual company social events, business networking meetings, conferences, and award ceremonies

• before-and-after shots of construction sites

• office technology that is of particular significance to a client’s business

• automotive, furniture, and food production factories where products are being manufactured

Corporate clients in the past have used these shots for a wide variety of applications including on their websites, and social media including LinkedIn, annual company reports, business plans, editorials in magazines, press articles, newsletters, emails, etc.

Many corporate clients will commission a variety of different photography styles, as well as professional headshots, to reveal their working environments, properties, and office buildings. The lifestyle aspect of these photographs makes a statement about their organisation and highlights their corporate brand and image in an effective and professional way.

It’s worth giving this some thought before you choose a particular corporate photography style.

I’ve helped many clients in the past, working closely with art and marketing directors, to choose the best style for images that suit their brand and company values. We discuss various ideas and options that can help make these important decisions.

If you need an experienced corporate lifestyle photographer, email me at richard@richardbollphotography.com or call +44(0)7812908229 to discuss your next project. More of my corporate photography can be seen here.

Six of My Favourite Corporate and Personal Photography Projects in 2022

Posted by Richard Boll on 24th January 2023 – 12:17 pm

Filed under Corporate headshot photography London, Corporate Photography, Corporate Portraiture, headshots, Location Photography, London, Portrait Photography

When a new year starts, I like to look back on the year before and review photography projects that I’ve worked on. I’ve handpicked 6 of my favourite corporate and personal images from 2022, depicting a range of different photography styles, including corporate headshots, corporate products, corporate portraits and two portraits from my personal UK visual artist project series.

1. UK Visual Artist Portrait Series: Gavin Turk

This portrait of Gavin Turk forms part of a personal project from my UK Visual Artist Portrait Series, inspired by his own work including the ‘Portrait of Something That I’ll Never Really See’ (1997). I love this double portraiture combination shot particularly in black and white, as I think it’s more graphically powerful giving a direct, punchier effect to the stripes on his shirt. Both of these elements also echo Turk’s previous work using combinations of double portraiture and stripes. What I like about portrait photography is quite often, an unexpected result can emerge either during the shoot or in post- production as in this case. There’s a need to be open to chance and not overly plan the end result.

2. Corporate Headshot Photography: Octopus Energy

Octopus Energy is one of my regular corporate photography clients and this image is from a series of shoots that involved photographing staff in 3 of their offices based in London, Manchester and Leicester. Working alongside an Art Director, we collaborated to produce a whole library of corporate headshots and lifestyle imagery. This shot shows a flavour of the natural, documentary ‘fly-on-the-wall’ photography style that I think suits the Octopus brand really well. What I like about this particular image is the employee looks very relaxed and is clearly having a real, natural conversation with a customer, oblivious to the fact that she’s being photographed.

3. Corporate Product Photography: Kin Chairs, designed by Pearson Lloyd for Allermuir

Allemuir came up with the original design concept for this image. Taken in their Preston studio, I attached a camera onto a scaffolding tower looking down onto this range of Kin chairs. What I like about this shot is that it shows off the products in an interesting and visually intriguing way. There’s the play on colour of the chairs around the table and it was fun choosing the props to co-ordinate with the chair colours. Having to direct a model was an interesting aspect of the shoot, in order to get a good range of images that worked. I like this particular photo of the model reaching into the bowl as that worked well compositionally, as a focal point in the middle of the table.

4. UK Visual Artist Portrait Series: Adam Chodzko

This portrait of Adam Chodzko, is another favourite image of mine from the UK visual artist portrait series. It was a particularly enjoyable shoot with a strong collaborative element to it. We discussed the images at some length beforehand with Adam letting me know what he thought would work and wouldn’t work. I like this particular image because it highlights the collaborative approach to the shoot, and echoes Chodzko’s love of water and use of crossovers between different spaces. The recording equipment he’s holding picked up both urban and rural sounds within the space and I plan to use the sound clip as part of the installation for a future exhibition.

5. Corporate Product Photography: John Lobb, Frank Sinatra’s Wooden Lasts

John Lobb is a bespoke, traditional shoemaker to celebrities and royalty alike. Central to their process is the creation of a pair of wooden lasts, shaped to the exact contours of the wearers feet. What started as a purely personal project, initiated by asking if I could photograph the wooden lasts, has now developed into a regular commission shooting images for John Lobb’s marketing and social media.
This photograph of Frank Sinatra’s wooden lasts is one of my favourite images from the project. It’s not just the fact that they belonged to Sinatra who was an icon that many people can connect with, but I love the fact that they’re well-worn with interesting textures that suggest that many shoes were made from this pair of wooden lasts. In a way, they speak of a history and a life well-lived.

6. Corporate Portrait Photography: Elrige, Master Last Maker at John Lobb

This was a commissioned portrait by John Lobb who requested photographs of their Last Makers. I’m particularly fond of this image of Elrige, Master Craftsman and Last Maker. He is a real character and I love the intensity of his stare in this photo. I also think this portrait captures the essence of the traditional establishment of John Lobb with its traditional working methods, where each wooden last is carved by hand.
Elrige may appear to be wielding a lethal weapon here, but the tool he’s holding is essential for last making and is known as a Last Knife. It’s used to get a block of wood down to the rough shape of the last. Afterwards, a surform, various grades of files and sand paper would be used to get the last down to its final shape and measure.

See more of my corporate portrait and corporate lifestyle photography projects taken on location in London and around the world.

Corporate portrait photography in London for Numis Investment Bank and The Brunswick Group

Posted by Richard Boll on 21st January 2022 – 12:42 pm

Filed under Corporate Photography, Corporate Portraiture, Environmental Portrait, headshots, Location, London

In September of 2021, I was commissioned by the creative agency The Brunswick Group to take corporate portrait photography of key members of staff at the investment bank Numis. The images were produced over a two-day shoot in various locations at their London offices. Each portrait required the location to be scouted and compositions discussed in advance with an art director from The Brunswick Group.

Numis is an innovative and dynamic investment bank with offices in New York and London. They’re proud to have the largest client base by number of corporates in the United Kingdom, and through combining their leading component services such as equity sales, M&A solutions, and trading and debt advisory, they operate at the forefront of the industry.

More of my corporate portrait photography can be seen here.

Corporate Photography for Octopus Energy in London, Warwickshire and Brighton

Posted by Richard Boll on 18th November 2020 – 12:50 pm

Filed under Corporate Photography, Corporate Portraiture, Environmental Portrait, Location, London

I was recently commissioned by Octopus Energy, a UK-based electricity and gas supplier specialising in sustainable energy. They were established in 2015 and have rapidly developed a reputation for excellent customer service and value for money. I was asked to photograph their staff members in London, Warwickshire and Brighton. The commission involved taking informal corporate photography of their team at work as well as posed corporate portraits. It was a great commission and I’m a big fan of Octopus Energy and their fantastic team.

More of my corporate photography can be found here.

Corporate Portrait Photography for Derwent Annual Report Commissioned by Merchant Cantos

Posted by Richard Boll on 2nd November 2020 – 3:41 pm

Filed under Corporate Photography, Corporate Portraiture, Environmental Portrait, Location, Location Photography, London

I’ve been providing corporate portrait photography to the global communications agency Merchant Cantos since 2017 and it was a great pleasure to be selected for a commission to take portraits for the Derwent London 2019 Annual Report. Derwent London is a property investment and development business with its headquarters in London. It was a significant project carried out over several days, producing group and single portraits of key members of staff. The group portraits were taken in a variety of different locations across London. Each portrait required the location to be scouted and compositions discussed in advance with art directors from Merchant Cantos. The project included group portraits taken in interiors of key Derwent London buildings, as well as exterior locations including building sites and rooftop spaces.

The portraits were deemed a great success and discussions have begun for commissioned imagery for the next Derwent London annual report.

More of my corporate portraits can be seen here.

Corporate portrait for Derwent annual report by London photographer Richard Boll

Group portrait for Derwent annual report by London photographer Richard Boll

Commissioned Still Life and Portrait Photography for J & A Beare, London

Posted by Richard Boll on 14th April 2020 – 6:31 pm

Filed under Corporate Photography, Editorial Photography, Editorial Portrait, Environmental Portrait, London, Product Photography

J & A Beare are an internationally-renowned musical instrument dealer based in London and Germany.

Their reputation has been built over 125 years of authenticating, valuing, making, restoring and selling musical instruments and bows.

They recently asked me to provide them with portrait photography of their members of staff as well as interior photographs of their premises on Queen Anne Street in London. I first took photographs of J & A Beare in 2015 for Rolls Royce Magazine, and it was wonderful to be back in the calm, quiet spaces of their premises. It’s an amazing experience to look inside the workshops where the beautiful instruments are lovingly restored by their expert craftsmen. As well as the portraits and interiors, the commissioned photography also included still life images of the instruments and bows that are being repaired and that are for sale.

More of my still life photography can be seen here and more of my portrait photography can be seen here.

London Chauffeur Service commissions Richard Boll as a Product and Lifestyle Photographer

Posted by Richard Boll on 31st January 2019 – 4:35 pm

Filed under Advertising, Advertising Photography, Commercial Photography, Corporate Photography, lifestyle Photography, Location, Location Photography, London

I was recently commissioned by Wheely as a product and lifestyle photographer to produce images for marketing, editorial use and social media for their London chauffeur service. The commission involved a detailed recce of various locations in London prior to the shoot, and liaising with producers, stylists and models regarding the logistics and timings of the shoot.

The company Wheely has launched a luxury ride-hailing app, offering a chauffeur service in London. It is an online service for ordering luxury and executive rides, from licensed and carefully selected drivers. The Wheely chauffeurs all have tested knowledge of London geography and have several years of executive driving experience. The rides are paid for with a credit or debit card linked to a user’s account. The license has been approved in London until 2023.

More of my lifestyle photography can be seen here.