How to prepare for
a corporate headshot.

What to wear

• Solid colors in mid tones. Navy, charcoal, forest green, burgundy, camel. They hold their shape under studio light and do not fight your face.
• Skip fine patterns and pure white. Thin stripes and small checks shimmer on camera. White blows out next to skin. Off-white and cream are fine.
• Bring two or three options. One formal, one a step down, one that feels most like you. We will tell you on the day which one works with the backdrop, and most people end up using two.
• Fit beats brand. A jacket that sits on the shoulders photographs better than an expensive one that does not. Press it. Lint roll it.
• Jewelry small, glasses on. If you wear glasses every day, wear them. We light around the lenses so there is no glare, and a face without its glasses looks like a stranger to the people who know it.

The night before and the morning of

Sleep. It is the single biggest difference between two sessions of the same person. Drink water the day before. Get the haircut a week out, not the day of, so it settles. If you are coming from work, bring a shirt in a bag rather than wearing it through the commute.

Makeup, if you wear it, should be what you wear to an important meeting: matte over shine, nothing you would not wear in daylight. We do not have a makeup artist on staff but can book one for team days.

What actually happens in the room

A single-person corporate session runs 30 to 60 minutes depending on the plan. You will not be left to pose. We direct the whole thing: where your weight sits, what your hands do, where your chin goes, what to look at, and what to think about in the half second before the shutter. Almost everyone freezes in front of a camera. Getting a natural face out of someone who hates this is our job, and we do it on film sets every week.

You see the photos on a screen as we go, so nothing is a surprise. If you do not love the result, we shoot it again for free. Fear of hating the photos is the main reason people put this off for years, and we have taken that off the table.

What you get, and what it costs

Sessions start at $395 and include direction, styling advice on the day, retouching and the full gallery of photos. You pick your favorites from the gallery and any extra retouched image is $50. The four options, for individuals, actors and models, personal brands and whole teams, are laid out on the portraits page with their prices.

The studio is at 2147 S Lumber St in Chicago with parking on site, and team days can be shot at your office with a portable lighting setup.