2023 gifted me with interesting and varied photographic shoots from still life to portrait, to corporate headshots and lifestyle photography. Here, I share five of my favourite photography projects from last year and the story behind each image.

Memento I – Still-life Photography

In September, I stayed in a villa in the mountains of Majorca. Whilst there, I turned the spare room into an improvised photographic studio. It was a great space to work in as I could use the existing shutters and curtains to precisely control the level of daylight.

I explored the grounds of the villa for objects to use in a still-life project and found some citrus fruit in various states of decay. I loved the beautiful colours of the rotting fruit that went from almost black to deep purple through to burnt orange.

This still life photography project was inspired by Memento mori, an element of visual language used in classical painting for centuries to remind the viewer of their mortality.

I placed the images into antique picture frames as a reference to classical painting and successfully entered it into the South West Academy Open Exhibition in Sidmouth, Devon. A series of 10 photographs from this project were also entered into the Sony World Photography Awards.

2. Yarli Allison – Visual Artist Portrait Photography

Yarli Allison is an artist born in Canada, raised in Hong Kong and is currently based in London and Paris. Her artistry uses an interdisciplinary approach that crosses sculpture, installation, CGI, moving image, drawing, poetry, tattoo, and performance.

She has been a subject for a personal project I started in 2022, producing portraits of Visual Artists. As part of this project, I shot some studio portraits in a suitable space in her London studio. Allison organised her wardrobe, choosing a range of different outfits to wear. It was a collaborative and creative process working with Yarli, making mutually agreed decisions on ideas and approaches for the shoot.
It was particularly satisfying to have time to play and experiment with lighting and different approaches to portraiture with such a great artist.

This portrait of Yarli is one of my favourite images from the shoot. I love her wardrobe choice and I feel the image captures her profound strength of character and identity. You can see some of Yarli’s work on her website here.

3. The lasts of Thomas Patrick John Anson, 5th Earl of Lichfield – Still Life Photography

John Lobb have been crafting exquisite bespoke footwear and leather goods for Royalty and celebrities alike for over 170 years. Central to their process is a pair of unique wooden lasts made to the exact specifications of the wearers’ feet.
In 1863, John Lobb received its first Royal Warrant after crafting a pair of riding boots for the then Prince of Wales. Since then, they have continued to craft bespoke footwear for ongoing generations of Royalty.

As part of a long-term project, I photographed the complete collection of significant John Lobb wooden lasts. It was great to photograph the lasts of Thomas Patrick John Anson, 5th Earl of Lichfield as part of the project. Known as Patrick Lichfield in his professional life, he joined the Grenadier Guards in 1959 and on leaving the Army in 1962, he began to work as a photographer’s assistant. He was asked to take the photographs of the wedding of the Prince and Princess of Wales in 1981, and went on to become one of the UK’s best-known photographers.

I used the same technical approach for this image as for the other photographs in the project, incorporating focus stacking to achieve a sharp image throughout the depth of field, from the top to the bottom of the wooden last. You can see more images from the project here. Original limited edition prints can be purchased here.

4. Swaine London 1750 – Still Life Product Photography

Swaine London, established in 1750, is one of the oldest and most prestigious luxury brands in the world, providing the finest handcrafted leather goods, hats, and umbrellas and supplying to the TV and movie industries since the 1950s. For example, Swaine have supplied Poet hats for every Indiana Jones film, including the original Herbert Johnson hat worn by Harrison Ford in ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ in 1981.

Swaine have commissioned my work as a luxury product photographer for a range of projects. This image featured on their website was from a shoot for their Christmas promotional campaign photographing a range of luxury leather products arranged into a still-life image. The shoot was a collaborative team effort working with the Art Directors from Swaine.

5. Newcore Capital – Corporate Lifestyle & Headshot Photography

Newcore Capital was founded in 2011 and is a Certified B Corporation. As a specialist investor in social infrastructure real estate in the UK, Newcore invests in assets that are integral to the needs of society. I’ve been commissioned to photograph several corporate portrait and lifestyle projects for Newcore Capital in the past.

In 2023, I carried out two Newcore corporate photography projects. The first was a corporate lifestyle shoot in the summer, and a range of different shots of staff in informal meetings were set up. It was an enjoyable and productive shoot, making the most of the natural daylight that was available.

The second shoot was a large-scale corporate headshot shoot at their London offices, producing headshots of every current employee in the company. You can see more of my corporate photography here.

See more photography projects I shot in 2023 including Derwent London and the OXO Tower Restaurant, Bar and Brasserie.

Large Scale Corporate Photography Projects

Over the years, I’ve managed several large-scale corporate headshot, portrait, and lifestyle photography projects for companies such as Citibank, T. Rowe Price, Lazard Bank, Octopus Energy and American Express. I’ve carried out different types of photographic shoots in locations including Bolivia, Dubai, San Francisco, Boston, Helsinki, Stuttgart, Dusseldorf, and Paris.

Corporate clients commission the corporate photography to use extensively:

– throughout their website
– in magazines, promotional materials, and blog posts
– in press releases and presentations
– on social media
– for internal use

Compilation of corporate photography examples taken by Richard Boll.

Most shoots take place in London and throughout the UK, but I often travel abroad to photograph employees at their partner offices too. As you can imagine, there are many moving parts involved in organising a large-scale, international corporate photography shoot. Depending on the complexity of the project and the number of locations, it can take several weeks to organise. Here, I share my process and how I manage global shoots for corporate headshots, portrait, and lifestyle images on a significant scale.

Pre-planning & Project Management

– Client Brief: One or more online meetings may take place to discuss a client’s desired images. Headshots are typically requested for between 50 and 200 people. Most clients request a uniform, formal, and professional result against the same background. This background can be a paper backdrop or the interior space of an office. An advantage of the paper backdrop option is that the look and feel of the portraits can be unified from shoots in different offices in different countries. Sometimes a client will request spontaneous corporate lifestyle images taken in specific locations around an office, showing people working at their desks, socialising, or having meetings.

An example of a page of uniform headshots taken by Richard Boll.

– Timetables: I work closely with internal office managers to line up diaries of the employees being photographed. These tend to be extremely busy people who travel regularly, and inevitably, they’re not all going to be available on the same day and in the same week. I often have to revisit locations to photograph people missed from the original shoot.

– Sourcing Locations: A significant amount of time is spent finding suitable locations for the shots. The client can do a walk around of their office spaces and remotely show me still images and videos that they’ve shot. Between us, we roughly work out an initial approach but typically, an in-person recce of the locations is also required.

– Recce Time: If I have to travel to another country, I tend to book in time the day before the shoot to come to an office to carry out a recce with the client, to look around their building, to find specific backgrounds that will be effective. Often, a client requests headshots taken in the same location, whereas some clients want a range of different backgrounds to generate variety within the shots. Depending on the nature of the offices it can be a challenge to find a range of backgrounds that are a) available and b) look good for the headshots.

A variety of examples of corporate headshot and lifestyle photography produced by Richard Boll.

– Flights & Hotels: Booking flights and hotels for multi-location shoots can be a time-consuming task. Flight times have to tie in with different time zones and shooting dates, sometimes allowing sufficient time to recover from jet lag.

– Transporting Equipment: Transporting photography equipment internationally can become a complex process. Considerations include ensuring that cameras, lenses, and lighting equipment are packed securely, to avoid damage. Lithium batteries have their particular packing requirements for flights regarding the number of batteries allowed and whether they must be taken within carry-on luggage as opposed to going in the hold. For some countries, paperwork must be completed for equipment to be taken through customs, and failure to do so can result in some or all of the equipment being seized until permissions have been cleared.

– Digital Operators: Typically, I will source digital operators to work with me on these shoots. In most situations, my camera is tethered to a laptop attached to a large screen, so the client can view the images as they’re being produced. The digital operator will create multiple backups of all content taken and label the files as we shoot. They will also create multiple formats, for example, low-resolution JPEGs for selection purposes, and high-resolution TIFFs and RAW files for retouching later.

– Sourcing Professionals: I can also be responsible for sourcing, managing, and paying suitable professionals for multiple shoots in each location, e.g. lighting assistants, hair stylists, and make-up artists.

– Supplying images: After the shoot, the client is supplied with low-resolution images to make final selections. I’ll typically send 30-40 shots of each person and the client will narrow these down to approximately 5 shots to show the individual. One or two final images per person are typically selected for optimisation.

An example of corporate lifestyle photography carried out in London by Richard Boll.

– Retouching: Retouching selected images is a significant task in each large-scale project. I could easily end up shooting over 200 headshot and lifestyle images that all need to be optimised and refined afterward. This is a process I can complete for a client although this is often carried out in-house by the client.

Email richard@richardbollphotography.com to discuss your next large-scale corporate photography project. See more corporate portrait and lifestyle images I’ve shot here.

Richard Boll

Category Archives: Photography Projects

Five Favourite Photography Projects from 2023